Why was it a lie? Wasn't there a video? Didn't the video cause dozens of protests across the planet? Could she possibly have known this particular attack wasn't caused by the video while it was happening? Or even soon after?

The riot in Egypt was huge, and it was caused by the video, as were all the other riots all over Africa and Asia that night. That's what probably had their attention because the Libya station was a small, relatively low-key one with little back up. Wasn't there a video riot in Bengazi prior to the attack? Was the terror attack deliberately planned to take advantage of the video riot confusion? Or was it just a lucky (for the terrorists) coincidence? Does it really matter?

Why is it "obvious they wanted to direct attention away from the attack"? How could they? Why should they? By that time, we knew people had died. It made no difference to Obama how they died. It made no difference to his campaign. Its so-called political significance means a great deal to Republicans because it gives them a hook to hang it on Obama with, but to anyone else the fact that people were killed is the big story. I personally never even considered any significance to the political angle until the GOP brought it up because to me it didn't matter. It never even occurred to me. It doesn't matter to anyone except those who are desperate to blame Obama (or is it Clinton?).

Any description of the cause or reason for the attack was irrelevant--the fact that Americans had died due to an attack was huge, whether the attack was the result of a video riot or a pre-planned attack may be of vital operational importance to planners and intelligence people (although they didn't get it straight either, remember?), but it made no difference to Obama's campaign. Any damage that it might do to his Presidency came from the deaths, not the motives. Its like nit-picking about the calibre of the murderer's gun. It may be important as forensic evidence but it tells you nothing about motive.

Now, if you want to argue that security at the station was sloppy and that Clinton bears responsibility for it, then you might have a point. Just like you might have a point if you wanted to blame 9/11 on Bush or the Lebanon Marine deaths on Reagan.

Let's look at it from another angle. The Republicans went after Susan Rice. Then they went after Obama. Now they're going after Clinton. If Sanders beats her for the nomination they'll probably try to hang it on him. This is a political weapon, unfortunately, it isn't obvious to anyone unless they already are desperately looking for something, anything, to hang it on the administration. That's why all the collateral bullshit stories started cropping up, like how Hillary "told the military to stand down". Nonsense, the military had no one on standby, and even if they had it would have taken them hours to get there from the nearest base. But that stand-down story sure got people pissed off, didn't it? The wing-nut indignation factory shifted to high gear. So did that bogus story that was reported in the NYT, by a witness who wasn't even there. They just wanted to believe it so, so bad.

The attack was like 9/11 for Bush, or for that matter, like Pearl Harbor for Roosevelt! Sure, the administration in power is responsible because it happened on their watch, and in the clear light of Monday morning it is always obvious that something could have been done, that some reasonable precautions could have been taken to prevent it. But there is no smoking gun, no great crime, no evil conspiracy, and no cover-up. They just hit us when we weren't expecting it. Its war, it happens all the time. We got sloppy, or lazy, and got caught with our pants down. Sometimes the bad guys just outsmart you.

Rob, you have to understand. I'm not desperately trying to cover up for my man. I really sincerely can't see a cover-up here, and certainly not a crime. At worst, I see a failure to set the security priorities more in line with the threat. A "failure of intelligence", to use the current euphemism. If you believe I'm just failing to see the obvious because I refuse to accept the truth, because I have too much emotionally invested in "my side", then maybe you're right. We are all incapable of seeing when our judgement is clouded by our prejudices. As I get older, I see that all-too-human flaw in my character more often than I care to admit, believe me.

But if you can see that flaw in me, can't you possibly be failing to see it in yourself? Do you really feel so strongly and so sure about this because you finally have a way to hang that SOB Obama and no one on the other side seems to notice? Surely, they must be conspiring to hide the TRUTH. Or they're too stupid to see it. It works both ways. And I could see it working in those GOP congressmen trying, and failing, to find the smoking gun in Hillary. And if Clinton was guilty of any real crimes, we'll never know it now because they let their judgement be clouded by their prejudices and they screwed up the investigation.

You could feel the hate even with the sound turned off.