Last summer, Barack Obama, the selfie president, gave a speech in which he blamed his difficulties, in part, on phony scandals:

Reversing this trend must be Washington’s highest priority.  It’s certainly mine.  But for most of this year, an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals have shifted focus from what we need to do to shore up the middle class.  And as Washington heads towards another budget debate, the stakes could not be higher.

When dunderkind, Jay Carney, was asked if the President included Benghazi among these phony scandals:

Q    Jay, in his speech again yesterday, President Obama mentioned the phony scandals that are part of an endless parade of distractions.  Can you tell us what phony scandals he’s talking about?

MR. CARNEY:  I think we all remember a few weeks ago when Washington was consumed with a variety of issues that, while in some cases significant, there was an effort underway to turn them into partisan scandals.  I don’t think anybody here would doubt that.  And what we’ve seen as time has passed and more facts have become known — whether it’s about the attacks in Benghazi and the talking points, or revelations about conduct at the IRS — that attempts to turn this into a scandal have failed.

Benghazi is a scandal, but it is neither phony nor manufactured. Four Americans were killed in Benghazi and the scandal is that this administration has lied through its teeth, from the beginning, about the facts and circumstances surrounding their deaths.

1. The story about the attack in Benghazi beginning as a demonstration was known to be lie from the moment it was told. The source of the lie was the State Department and Hillary Clinton.

2. The day after the attack, the president of CBS News, David Rhodes, brother of Ben Rhodes who was the White House apparatchik charged with coordinating the administration’s talking points on Benghazi, gave a speech in which he said the government believed the attack was not related to the internet video Innocence of Muslims but rather a coordinated attack. This opinion has been verified by USAF Brigadier General Robert Lovell, who was in the USAFRICOM operations center during the attack, and by acting CIA Director Michael Morrell in their Congressional testimony.

3. Despite knowing the cause, the administration made the calculated decision to deny the truth and push out a blatant lie to Congress and the American people. They did this out of hubris — they were emotionally invested in showing the world they could do without war something the Bush administration could not do with war — and political expediency — they were 60 days from a general election and did not want to answer questions.

This lying continues to this very day by administration toadies such as Jay Carney and David Plouffe. What is worse, they’ve dispatch their minions, like the pasty Dave Weigel, to marginalize the deaths of four Americans by insisting the scandal has already been explained and is “impenetrable.”

The scandal is only “impenetrable” to those who are so dishonest and cretinous that they gladly accept the deaths of four Americans — Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. Tyrone Woods, Sean Smith and Glen Doherty — and attempt to stymie any inquiry into their deaths in order to save the political fortunes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.