For weeks, the Obama administration has trotted out several “explanations” regarding the Benghazi debacle. Yet at a campaign stop in Denver on October 26, the president faced his most challenging interview to date on the subject. Kyle Clark, a reporter for Denver’s WUSA-TV, asked a two-part question: “Were the Americans under attack at the consulate in Benghazi, Libya denied requests for help during that attack, and is it fair to tell Americans that what happened is under investigation and we’ll all find out after the election?”

After claiming that the election “has nothing to do with four brave Americans getting killed and us wanting to find out exactly what happened,” the president added the following: “I can tell you as I have said over the last couple of months since this happened, that the minute I found out what was going on, I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to. Number two, we’re going to investigate exactly what happened to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice.” He then re-iterated number one. “I guarantee you that everybody in the State Department, our military, CIA, you name it, had number-one priority (sic) making sure that people were safe.”

If that is truly the case, someone is lying. Furthermore, an obvious question arises: where is that directive?

According to the Weekly Standard, the president “was, it appears, in the White House from the time the attack on the consulate in Benghazi began, at around 2:40 p.m. ET, until the end of combat at the annex, sometime after 9 p.m. ET.” National Review reports that the president held a meeting with his national-security team, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, at 5:00 p.m. ET. Based on the president’s own assertion, we can assume that sometime during the course of that meeting, Obama told both the military and the CIA to do “whatever we need to.”

We also know that during this time frame, three emails were sent by the State Department Operations Center to several entities, including top national security officials at the State Department, the Pentagon, the FBI, the White House Situation Room and the office of the Director of National Intelligence. Those emails revealed that the “U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi Under Attack,” that the shooting has subsequently stopped, the search for the ambassador and other COM (Chief of Mission) personnel is underway – and finally, that terror group Ansar al-Sharia claimed responsibility for the attack.

In other words, it is beyond dispute that the president, and at least two senior members in the military chain of command, were aware of what was occurring in Benghazi in real time.

Recent reports disseminated by Fox News and CBS News’ Sharyl Attkisson reveal how those leaders responded. According to Attkisson, “Hours after the attack began, an unmanned Predator drone was sent over the U.S. mission in Benghazi, and that the drone and other reconnaissance aircraft apparently observed the final hours of the protracted battle,” one that lasted “more than seven hours.” Fox News reported that sometime during those seven hours, “an urgent request from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. consulate and subsequent attack several hours later on the annex itself was denied by the CIA chain of command.” Fox also revealed that, despite fighting that went on at the CIA annex for four of those hours, no planes were deployed from Sigonella Air base, two hours away, “two separate Tier One Special operations forces were told to wait,” and “a Pentagon official says there were never any requests to deploy assets from outside the country.”

On Sunday, Washington Times blogger James Robbins, citing his own source inside the military, reported that Gen. Carter Ham, commander of U.S. Africa Command, was also ordered to “stand down,” and when he refused, he was relieved of his command.

All of the above can only be explained by one of two scenarios: either the president of the United States has completely re-defined what the expression “doing whatever we need to" means, abandoning the warrior ethic of never leaving our dead or wounded (or those still alive) behind – or his order was ignored.

Secretary Panetta’s explanation for the lack of action, asserted the day before the president’s radio interview, seemingly contradicted Obama. "A basic principle,” he said on October 25, “is you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on – without having some real-time information about what’s taking place.” If that’s the case, wouldn’t such a decision have been transmitted to the president by either Panetta or General Dempsey? And if such a message were delivered, why wouldn’t the standard-bearer of the “most transparent administration in history” level with the American people, and tell them it was beyond our capacity to respond in time to save the four dead Americans?

On Sunday, Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) got right to the crux of the issue. “And, now we’re hearing that the President of the United States, based on his own words, issued a directive immediately after he found out about the firefight saying he wanted to be sure the people on the ground were safe and they were getting what they needed,” said Portman. “It didn’t happen. This means that either the president’s order was not followed, which would be a breakdown in terms of the White House procedure, or it means the order wasn’t issued. We need to find out about this. It’s not about politics.”

Again, the president insisted that his order was issued to “everybody in the State Department, our military, CIA, you name it,” and that the “number-one priority” was “making sure that people were safe.”

Where is that directive,  Mr. President?