I do take offense with some suggestion that in any way, we haven’t tried to make sure that the American people knew as the information was coming in what we believed. — 2012

My Take – Take offense all you want, but I’m not believing that you did what you could to safeguard American lives in Benghazi, that you have been forthright about what you know and when you knew it, and that you believe that you owe us an explanation about what went wrong and what you’re going to do to prevent it from happening again.

The reason I’m so quick to believe stories about your incompetence and politicization of this incident is that you have been incompetent when it comes to just about anything that doesn’t go your way for three and a half years.  In that time, you have made political points instead of finding solutions in every instance I can think of.

• The ambassador and other officials at our embassy in Libya requested more security.  You denied it.
• When the attack began, you not only had a drone in position to see exactly what was happening, you had someone in the compound giving you ground truth.  You did next to nothing.
• You saw what was really happening on the ground.  You still spent days talking about ‘demonstrations’ and blaming an American citizen for the actions of terrorists on another continent.
• The military had assets available to assist, or at least to shorten the attack.  They were not utilized.
• You called these attacks and the deaths of our diplomats and citizens as “bumps in the road” and “suboptimal”.  Shame on you.

Were some of these actions or lacks of action committed by your subordinates?  Possibly.  But here’s a leadership principle you seem to have missed along the way “You can delegate authority, but not responsibility”.  The buck stops with you, Mr. President.  The things that led to our embassy staff not being able to withstand the attacks in Benghazi are all yours to explain.

In short, Mr. President, I don’t give a tinker’s damn that you’re offended that the truth is getting out and we’re asking you the hard questions.  Put on your big boy pants, assuming you own a pair and can find them after such a long period of disuse, and start telling the truth to us.

• When were you informed of the attack?
• What options for assistance were you given by your military and diplomatic advisors?
• Why did you not pursue any of those options?
• When were you, not your staff, told that this was probably a terrorist attack?
• Why did you attack an American citizen for exercising his First Amendment rights and use him as a scapegoat for the deaths of our Ambassador and three others?
• Why did you leave Washington for a Las Vegas fundraiser while the ashes of our consulate were still smoldering?
• Why wasn’t there a better response to the Ambassador’s request for more security, and why didn’t you personally respond to his communications?  He was your personal representative to Libya, not Hillary Clinton’s.

Until we get honest, thorough, and forthright answers to these questions, you’re going to get hammered by anyone who cares that Americans were left twisting in the wind.  Grow up and start doing the hard parts of your bloody job or step aside and let an adult take over.