IMO there would be a lot more to an attack on an ambassador and an embassy. (or any of its properties) An attack on an ambassador, any ambassador, has more significant implications than, say, an attack on a mil base somewhere. An attack on any diplomatic mission property has big implications being American soil. The message such attacks send have enormous national security and foreign relations ramifications.
How we respond (or utterly fail to respond) sends a message back about what the U.S. is made of and how we will respond to other provocations anywhere in the world. The message sent or unsent is a ripple that travels around the globe changing the view of the U.S. everywhere. 0coward has just told the world that he can't be trusted by his closest allies, his own ambassadors. They have to see him as utterly spineless now. And proven so in the open not just backroom opinions.
The point I am driving at here is meant for all the couch potatoes out there who might still doubt that the POTUS had to be notified immediately and had to be involved first hand in every decision and had to be the one to sign off on any and all actions approved or denied for reasons that exceed even the undeniable need for POTUS to sign off on crossing and acting on foreign soil.
The downside of getting it wrong is bigger than merely violating sovereign foreign soil.
I totally agree with 41, and most folks (reasonably) focus on the 4 dead Americans as the worst aspect, but around the world, AQ just stuck a $#!++Y stick in Uncle Sam’s eye, spit in his face, and kicked him in the balls.
And Obama was such a coward, he couldn’t even sign off on a rescue plan, ALREADY IN PROGRESS!
At the very least, by NOT granting cross-border authority, he doomed the two ex-seals who died hours later, after he went to bed.
And the fact that Obama went to bed (resting up for Vegas) while his ambassador was MIA in AQville, is just utterly DAMMNING!