Why was any of this worth doing, even cynically? Even if you assume Obama put his own reelection first, how could he possibly have selected this lie and thought it was a good idea? Yes, the planned terrorist attack in Libya hurts the image he would like to have as the vanquisher of al Qaeda, but the truth about that has already come out, with 3 weeks left to go before the election. By handling the matter the way he did, we have — on top of the damage to the vanquisher of al Qaeda image — a glaring lie and plain evidence of extremely poor judgment.