I watched the beginning of Monday’s presidential press conference shortly after waking up this morning. What a way to start the day.

Before I attempt to make a few points about what I saw and heard, let’s backtrack a bit.

There is credible evidence, much of it having been expertly documented here at The Patriot Post, that this president, and this secretary of state, simply folded their hands, twiddled their thumbs, and allowed four Americans to be killed at the hands of terrorists, simply because sending the available help would have been politically detrimental to this administration and its plans for re-election. The reasons are fodder for another commentary, but the fact that they exist is the primary focus in this one.

Let’s mention the victims’ names, once again, because, if we forget them, we lose the momentum to continue to ask questions about why these duty-bound Americans had to die.

Glen Doherty, a former Navy SEAL, was working for the CIA and was located at a CIA safehouse across town when the attack began. He asked to be given permission to intervene when word of the attack reached him. Despite orders to stand down, he went to the consulate in an effort to defend those inside. Glen fought off the terrorists throughout the night, for more than seven hours, from the roof of the consulate, and finally succumbed to a mortar attack in early the morning hours of September 12th.

Tyrone Woods, also a former Navy SEAL, left a secure annex located a kilometer away to make his way to the consulate where he was able to gather the staff and safely transport them back to the CIA annex. He then joined Glen Doherty on the roof of the consulate in an attempt to hold off the terrorists until help arrived. He, too, perished as a result of mortar fire in the early morning hours of September 12th.

Sean Smith was a career information management officer with the U.S. Foreign Service. Sean spent six years in the U.S. Air Force before joining the Foreign Service, and served as a ground radio maintenance specialist before being promoted to Staff Sergeant. He died of smoke inhalation in the Benghazi consulate.

Christopher Stevens was an American diplomat who was serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, and had only been on assignment there for three months. Stevens’ body was not found within the consulate, but had been brought to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead. Little is known of what happened to him between the consulate attack and his body arriving at the hospital. It has been stated that he died of smoke inhalation, but no official autopsy report has been issued.

After the president and the secretary of state refused to send available help to these four Americans, they then began to look for explanations for the massacre that would turn Americans’ focus from the threat of terrorism (which would have been politically inexpedient) to something else. Anything else. Logical, realistic, or otherwise.

And the something else onto which they latched was a relatively harmless video. The maker of that video was premeditatedly portrayed as the catalyst for Doherty’s, Woods’, Smith’s and Stevens’ deaths. He was subsequently imprisoned (and still remains behind bars), and demonized by the administration and throughout the mainstream media.

Gradually, over a period of many months, it became clear to even the most partisan among us, that the video in question had absolutely nothing to do with the massacre, and that the deaths of four Americans were the result of a premeditated terrorist attack, an attack about which the administration and its state department had received ample warning from numerous credible sources.

Fast forward eight months.

We have endured days of testimony regarding the Benghazi massacre, testimony in which dedicated career diplomats, without a political bone in their bodies, have been questioned, and cross examined by partisan democrats, about what they know about the attack on the consulate and the deaths of the four Americans. We have also been made aware of the deep concerns of career military people, and the families of the Benghazi victims, who have been questioned and placed under a microscope in the mainstream media.

Many of these people are putting their careers, and their future peace of mind, on the line. This president has a gruesome history of vindictiveness and vengeance aimed at those who do not toe the administration’s line, so, should this potential scandal blow over, with the complicit help of the mainstream media, there no doubt will be hell to pay.

And the President of the United States?

After more than four years of a practically-no-press-conferences policy (after all, I am in charge and, since I am above reproach, there is no need to explain my actions), he calls a press conference and, without even taking a breath after the introductions, immediately calls upon a ‘journalist’, by name, who then asks a single softball question about the Benghazi talking points.

At which point the president presents his side of the story, proclaiming that, despite unfair accusations to the contrary, he had declared the massacre to have been terrorism-related three days after it occurred. And he does so with an attitude that says, ‘How dare anyone question my veracity, and my leadership abilities!’

There were no House inquisitors at this press conference, as there have been in the Benghazi hearings. No genuine truth-seekers willing or able to ask him ‘Why, then, did you appear on The View, and David Letterman, more than three days after the massacre, declaring that the violence was the result of an irresponsible video?’ Or, ‘Why, then, did you address the United Nations, a full two weeks later, repeatedly declaring that a video was the cause of the violence?’

Honorable Americans are placing themselves in the hot seat in order to shine the light of truth on the Benghazi massacre. But the President of the United States only offers pick-and-choose (not to mention lying) answers to the burning questions about Benghazi, and he will only field them under tightly scripted circumstances, with no rebuttals allowed.

Compare this to a trial in which the accusers are mercilessly questioned and cross-examined, and then the accused is simply allowed to make a pre-scripted statement in his defense, and the prosecutor is handcuffed by not being allowed to question him further about his assertions.

The accused is the most powerful man in the world. And he is an indescribably arrogant, cowardly liar.