Legitimacy of Obama Re-Election at Stake in Benghazi

Scandal: Probing coordinated lying on the 2012 terrorist killings of an ambassador and three other U.S. personnel is no "diversion," as Nancy Pelosi claims. The legitimacy of a president's re-election is at stake.

'Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi!" complained top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi last week. "Why aren't we talking about something else?" like "who is going to create jobs." The rest "is a diversion."

"I wish that rather than spending so much of their time ... on this and on repealing the Affordable Care Act, Republicans actually got about the business of helping the economy grow and helping it create jobs," White House press secretary Jay Carney said last week.

When the White House and congressional Democrats want to swerve the spotlight onto their economic record, you know they sense big danger on Benghazi.

"What difference does it make?" Hillary Clinton asked in Senate testimony 15 months ago. We know now the White House thought it made all the difference in the world — enough, perhaps, to decide the election.

Calling White House national security communications aide Ben Rhodes' email a smoking gun is an understatement; obtained with great effort by Judicial Watch, it is pure 2012 election-year damage control.

Its recipients included David Plouffe, Dan Pfeiffer and Carney — all Obama spinmeisters. "Prep Call with Susan" was the subject line, and Rhodes sought to arm Susan Rice, who was the U.N. ambassador, with ways to protect the president before she appeared on all of the Sunday news shows a few days after the attack.

The second goal in prepping Rice was "to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy." That came just after conveying that the administration was "doing everything that we can" to protect U.S. personnel stationed abroad.

Rhodes also emphasized that Rice should say the president "provides leadership that is steady and statesmanlike."

Now imagine if, after 9/11, the priority of President Bush's White House was looking after the boss' image, making sure no one thought there was a "failure of policy" and that people saw Bush as "statesmanlike."

We know from ex-National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor that Obama wasn't in the White House Situation Room while U.S. officials were being slaughtered in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012. Maybe he needed sleep for his Las Vegas campaign fundraiser the next day.

Channeling Jeff Spicoli from "Fast Times At Ridgemont High," Vietor told Fox News' Bret Baier, "Dude, this was two years ago. We're still talking about the most mundane thing."

No mundane questions will be directed later this month at Secretary of State John Kerry, who is being subpoenaed by Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight Committee. And a new select committee with "robust authority" just announced to investigate Benghazi isn't likely to bore the public either.

To borrow a familiar phrase from Watergate, it is perfectly clear what lies at the heart of the Benghazi scandal: coordinating the lie that there was no terrorist attack to assure Obama's re-election.