There is an awful lot of media noise around these events in Libya so let me break it down as I understand it.
In the days and weeks leading up the attack on our consulate in Benghazi and the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens, multiple events probably should have led relevant parties in government to increase security. The British consulate, which was originally in the building next door, was evacuated in the first week of September - so they could see the writing on the wall. but on our end, none of that was done.
The most likely reason for this is simply government incompetence which is common under both political parties, but is particularity visible in the age of Obama where expanding your bureau's reach and increasing it's funding (otherwise known in government as making hay when the sun shines) has always been a much higher priority than actually administering government duties.
But to be fair, it's hardly the first time the federal government missed obvious warning signs. Balls get dropped often. And by the time the attack took place on September 11th (I seem to recall that date from somewhere) nothing to protect our consulate or citizens had been done.
Then the attack occurred. It was an organized attack by a heavily armed Al Qaeda affiliate. There was no mob that got out of control or riot in the street. It was just an attack by a terrorist organization - and our Ambassador and several other American citizens were killed. The event ended with the black Al Qaeda flag flying over what used to be a US consulate - not exactly a picture that team Obama wanted to see all over the airwaves running up to a tight election.
The US State department reacted to the attack in the way it almost always does - by rhetorically falling to it's knees and begging forgiveness of the aggrieved Arab Street. There was some confusion because of other riots and protests that were taking place elsewhere in the near east to commemorate the murder of Americans, and the state department officials who issued the apology might not have been perfectly clear what events exactly preceded what.
But when Mitt Romney's campaign issued a statement calling the State department's apology to a bunch of murdering thugs who had just killed a US Ambassador 'shameful', we saw the first real consensus on messaging. The mainstream media, acting in their capacity as Obama's praetorian guard, fell on Romney like a pack of wolves for 'politicizing' the event.
What happened next is disputed. The political right and the few media outlets that have dared to deviate from the liberal consensus, believe that team Obama somehow came up with this story about some Youtube video and a riot gone 'out of control' to lay cover for their obvious mishandling of the issue. They needed to project an image of Obama as a tough decisive leader for reelection purposes.
The left and the Whitehouse though have contended that it was a failure further down the line from Obama. And in the subsequent weeks, have convinced a number of government officials to fall on their sword's for the good of the emperor. But these days, a dead underling rarely stays dead. The Intelligence community and State department have both been thrown "under the bus" by the committee to reelect, and they have both responded by leaking information which indicates that team Obama knew everything in advance, even if the candidate himself didn't. This points the rational observer to see a potential cover-up to achieve a political purpose - but that is as yet, unproven.
One way or the other, the moral of this story is pretty simple to me. For liberals, everything is always political. And meeting a political goal (like getting your people reelected) is always worth any sacrifice, particularly because for liberals, the sacrifice is always someone else's.
"The end justifies the means' is liberal's idea of 'strong political principle'. There are 100 million graves filled with innocent civilians, spread across Europe and Asia that will testify to that fact. And although there doesn't seem to be any hard evidence yet that Obama and his team directly lied to the American people - I think only a fool would doubt that it will be along eventually.
