Did Barack Obama lie about Benghazi?

First, you may have heard this claim on conservative Talk Shows, especially on Fox News. But objectively, there is no evidence the president "lied." Clearly, there are some unanswered questions about what happened in the region. There are also important security questions about Benghazi; congress voted to cut funding for embassy security, but perhaps they need to reevaluate that stance. Also, there were several different explanations offered in the early days of the Benghazi incident, and this is (sadly) typical in the middle of a breaking news story-- what we think we know turns out to be not exactly the case. This happened during the Bush years, and anti-Bush partisans immediately assumed he was a liar; we now see the same phenomenon during the Obama years.

But before you accept the belief that the president intentionally misled the public, I can tell you from experience that unfolding news stories from foreign regions are especially difficult to cover; and getting the facts is often a long, slow process. We do know the local militias who were doing embassy security did not adequately protect Chris Stevens, but we also know he had previously said he did not feel in danger. His death is a great loss, both to the diplomatic corps and to the country he loved. Meanwhile, beyond the political rhetoric, not all the facts have been made known, and until they are, the talk shows will continue to make partisan claims about what happened, rather than awaiting the full explanation.