But according to a CNN/ORC International poll released Tuesday, a majority of the public doesn't believe the Obama administration intentionally tried to mislead Americans on the September attack that left the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans dead.
On Libya, 54% of the country is dissatisfied with the administration's response to the Benghazi attack, with only four in ten saying they're satisfied with the way the White House handled the matter.
"But that dissatisfaction is not because Americans see a cover-up," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Only 40% believe that the inaccurate statements that administration officials initially made about the Benghazi attack were an attempt to deliberately mislead the public. Fifty-four percent think those inaccurate statements reflected what the White House believed to be true at the time."
The most important feature of this scandal to me has been the hair-tearing, couch-fainting, toddler-with-the-vapors insistence that somehow Obama misattributed the attack as not terrorism (even though he said it the very next day in his first official utterance on the topic). The attempt by Mitt Romney to create a "gotcha" in the debates over Benghazi lead to what is arguably the most-quoted in-your-stupid-face comeback of the election season: "Proceed, Governor"
I've had trouble following any coherent thread of argument on Benghazi which doesn't lead me in the direction of "Obama is bad because, man." A non-attack attack. Of course, many of us think that the "Obama is bad" hate train has a little racist caboose following along behind it with the words "because he's the negro" stenciled on it in little tiny letters that we're not supposed to notice. Which makes me want to deliberately notice it all the more.
But, there is no there, there. There is no controversy. There is no scandal. There is no fucking sense to the whole thing. Apparently, Obama is simultaneously the most evilest mastermind of all evildom, and completely incompetent and feckless. It just depends on what hour of the day it happens to be as to which idiotic line of attack the right will pursue.
And still, you can find wingnuts shrieking like an overheated teapot on this subject, raving and flailing in the hope that any second now, this thing will take off like Monica Lewinsky's stained dress and turn the public against the President.
And it's just not going to go there. Amazing. It is almost like someone came in and added some baffles and absorbers in the right-wing echo chamber.