The Republicans are determined not to let their trumped up, clearly partisan-based outrage on the attack on the Benghazi consulate go down the memory hole, like so many of the Republican failures of the last dozen years. Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Rep Darrell Issa promised brand new information to CBS News on Benghazi attack.

So the CBS News breathlessly brings on Issa to deliver this new information which will implicate the Obama administration in this great conspiracy that will no doubt bring the presidency down.

Except...

This great new information? It's testimony from US deputy chief of mission in Libya, Gregory Hicks. The problem? Hicks wasn't in Benghazi at the time of the attacks and has no actual idea what happened. Everything he testified about was his suppositions based on reports. The same reports that have issued forth in the months after the attack.

"I think everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning," Greg Hicks, a 22-year foreign service diplomat who was the highest-ranking U.S. official in Libya after the strike, told investigators under authority of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Hicks, the former U.S. Embassy Tripoli deputy chief of mission, was not in Benghazi at the time of the attack, which killed Chris Stevens - then the U.S. ambassador to Libya - and three other Americans.

When he appears this week before the committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Hicks is expected to offer testimony at odds with what some American officials were saying in public - and on "Face the Nation" - just five days after the attack. Benghazi whistleblowers have rallied attention to discrepancies among the administration's reaction to the attack, which The Weekly Standard suggests was frayed by ever-evolving talking points that sought to remove references to al Qaeda.

On Sept. 16, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice hit the media circuit, appearing on all five Sunday talk shows to dispel the notion that the strike was a premeditated terrorist act and to perpetuate the case that it began "spontaneously" out of protests in Egypt. Rice's spot on "Face the Nation" that day was preceded by the new President of Libya Mohammed al-Magariaf, who said his government had "no doubt that this was preplanned, predetermined."

"For there to have been a demonstration on Chris Stevens's front door and him not to have reported it is unbelievable," he said. "I never reported a demonstration; I reported an attack on the consulate. Chris - Chris's last report, if you want to say his final report - is, 'Greg, we are under attack.'

"...I've never been as embarrassed in my life, in my career, as on that day," Hicks continued in his interview with investigators. "The net impact of what has transpired is, [Rice,] the spokesperson of the most powerful country in the world, has basically said that the president of Libya is either a liar of doesn't know what he's talking about. ....My jaw hit the floor as I watched this."

Though the White House has said it was in contact with officials in Libya the night of the attack, Hicks said in the days following, he was never consulted about the talking points. One day after Rice's Sunday show blitz, Hicks said he called Beth Jones, acting assistant secretary for near eastern affairs at the State Department, and asked, "Why did Amb. Rice say that?" The tone of her answer - "I don't know," he said - indicated that "I perhaps asked a question that I should not have asked."

The net impact of Rice's statements, Hicks said, was "immeasurable." On top of his personal belief that "the reason it took us so long to get the FBI to Benghazi is because of those Sunday talk shows," he said, Magariaf lost face "in front of not only his own people, but the world" at a time of democratic transition in his country. He added, "I have heard from a friend who had dinner with President Magariaf in New York City that he was still angry at Amb. Rice well after the incident."

Notice anything particularly evidentiary about Hicks' testimony? It's "unbelievable" that Stevens didn't call in a demonstration? Rice's statements have caused "immeasurable" damage? Um, hearsay anyone? Why is Hicks' opinion any more compelling than anyone else not actually there?

You know what I noticed didn't get mentioned in Schieffer's interview of Issa? The seven other attacks on US consulates between the years of 2002 and 2008 that haven't got Republicans' collective knickers in a bunch:

Benghazi was not unique. There have been eights attacks on six different U.S. consulates in and around the Mideast since the 9/11 attack. They include:

1. Karachi, Pakistan, 2002, 2003, and 2006
2. Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 2002
3. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 2004
4. Damascus, Syria, 2006
5. Sana’a, Yemen, 2008
6. Benghazi, Libya, 2012

And what role Congress itself played:

Congress also shares a portion of the blame for the fate of Ambassador Stevens and the three others killed:

The State Department is still reeling from deep cuts made by Senate and House appropriations panels to the Obama administration’s budget requests for next year, with some officials warning of national security risks. (2011-10-01)

The quote seems particular damning, but read the whole article. There was an 22% across the board cut, but a separate request for spending on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan was approved. Including the separate request the State Department budget was still down $3.5 billion from the prior year, a very short sighted move given that Arab Spring was only ten months old at the time the decision was made.

Three autocratic governments blown away, two countries sliding into sectarian conflict, two others facing massive protests, and four that were compeled to introduce reforms by their restive population. And the response from Congress to this seismic shift? Budget cuts.

But yes, let's all wring our hands over Gregory Hicks' feelings and assumptions. It's so much easier than taking an honest look at Benghazi.

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Last night, Sen. James Inhofe did Fox News the favor of telling host Jeanine Pirro that Benghazi is “probably the greatest cover-up in my memory.” The predictable result was that the comment was re-played on Fox & Friends this morning (as it probably will be elsewhere on Fox) thus giving a boost to himself, Pirro’s not-very-prominent Saturday night show and, most of all, the Benghazi conspiracy theory that Fox clings to despite any and all facts disproving it.

The discussion started with a clip of Inhofe saying:

I have made a study of different cover-ups – the Pentagon Papers, Watergate and Iran-Contra. I’ve never seen anything like it. I think this is probably the greatest cover-up in my memory, anyway.

Of course, that’s ridiculous. Not even the Foxy Friends argued that was likely - though they studiously avoided saying one way or the other. As Karoli posted a few weeks ago, Rachel Maddow has demolished the whole cover-up conspiracy theory. So has The New York Times. And Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tom Ricks tried to tell Fox News but their widdle feewings were so hurt by his accusation that they were politicizing the tragedy that they booted him off the set before they could debunk it. But even if you believe that there are still some unanswered questions out there, the entire “conspiracy” boils down to Who Changed The Talking Points About Benghazi and was the danger of Al Qaeda downplayed to help President Obama win re-election?

Well, now that President Obama has been re-elected – despite Fox News’ best efforts – the “fair and balanced” network is turning its sights on Hillary Clinton, a likely nominee in 2016. I guess you need to allege a giant cover-up if you’re going to allege Clinton faked her concussion to avoid testifying about Benghazi. Even though there’s no question that she will testify later, as even host Clayton Morris acknowledged.

Morris pretended that questions about Benghazi are questions about the death of Americans: “At the heart of all of this, of course, is the four individuals who died during that tragedy. And the answers are still not being found, as our own Catherine Herridge reporting yesterday on our show.”

But rather than focus on what happened to those Americans, Morris immediately turned his attention to Clinton and kept it there. He said:

(M)ore questions emerging about who knew what when at the State Department and when these cables, these sort of desperate cables for security and security issues – a series of them – how far up the chain of command did they go? Did they go to Hillary Clinton’s office on the 7th floor? …At least one cable, according to Catherine Herridge’s reporting may have made its way to (Clinton’s) office. Did she look at it? Was there any actionable information on that? Why didn’t they ask for more security at the time? And Hillary Clinton, of course, still suffering from a concussion, or recovering from a concussion, so hasn’t been able to answer that but she will at testimony coming up.

Yet somehow with all those questions, nobody thought to point out, as Karoli did, that it was Secretary Clinton who ordered the review and the review was done. Furthermore, as the New York Times reported, “Mrs. Clinton accepted all of the panel’s 29 recommendations and has already begun to make changes.”

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Joe Scarborough, apparently aware that the American public isn't buying John McCain's and Lindsey Graham's nonsensical attacks on Susan Rice, finally had enough this morning and called their escapades a "clown show".

He also made this rather good point:

SCARBOROUGH: Did John McCain say that Colin Powell was unfit to continue as Secretary of State after the information that he gave before the united nations that led us into the Iraq war? Did that make Colin Powell unfit to be Secretary of State or was Colin Powell given bad intel? I never heard him say that. I never heard Lindsey Graham say that.

You really wonder what these guys are thinking.

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When is Iran-Contra like Benghazi? Never, unless you're John McCain and are relying on the average IQ of the average Fox viewer to connect the non-existent dots into something that neither event is.

Let's see if we can refresh memories just a bit. Iran-Contra would be when Ronald Reagan agreed to sell weapons to the guy holding US diplomats hostage and then tried to cover up the arms sales by funneling the proceeds to the Nicaraguan Sandinistas Contras.

Benghazi, on the other hand, was an attack on a United States consulate in Libya that caused the tragic deaths of two diplomats and two former SEALs. The only possible similarity is the genesis of Iran-Contra; that is, that a US embassy was attacked and diplomatic personnel taken hostage by the very same Iranian government that Reagan sold arms to in order to free said hostages. If one wanted to find a scandal, it might be found in Republicans' willingness to de-fund security for diplomatic consulates.

I'm old enough to remember when everyone, Democrat and Republican alike, was outraged that a United States embassy had been attacked and diplomats held hostage. Nowadays it seems like all anyone cares about is twisting up a tragedy into some kind of political capital. What kind remains to be seen.

Senator McGrumpy McCain seems to think he will uncover a coverup, and that's where the similarities are in his calcified brain cells, it seems.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) hosted an event in his home state yesterday, ostensibly about immigration policy, before repeating one of his favorite talking points. "I'm glad you got up Benghazi," the senator told a constituent. "My friends, it's a cover-up."

McCain neglected to explain what "it" is. "It's" a cover-up? What's a cover-up?

When challenged on that, he just blew off David Gregory, going on the offense to cover the absence of anything suggesting some kind of terrible scandal. Congress has held hearings, Republicans have produced their own reports, we've heard all of it over and over again as Fox dutifully flogs the air in search of that One Thing that will bring down the president.

Since McCain is flogging Iran-Contra, perhaps one host could ask him what his involvement with Reagan's motley crew was. After all, he's the guy who served on the advisory board to the International Anti-Communist League, a group who was closely aligned with Nicaraguan death squads in the 1980s. I suppose he thinks we'll forget about that association, but as far as I'm concerned, it's a coverup. Am I right?

The non-scandal that is Benghazi will be flogged and whipped as long as there is at least one person out there who buys into conspiracy scandals where there are no goals, no benefits, and no reasons for such a conspiracy to exist. Anyone who thinks he isn't flogging this for pure political gain is deluded. Anyone who thinks there's pure political gain to be had is crazier. This is just grist for the base, to keep them engaged and interested in something, because they've got very little to keep them in the game.

*updated to correct reference error.