"With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they'd go out and kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?" Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asked the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a hearing on the attack in Benghazi, Libya, that left three Americna diplomats dead. "It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from happening again."
It matters because a protest gone wild or Libyan guys out for a walk require a very different response than a planned terrorist attack. A premeditated attack would show that the State Department was blindsided. A premeditated attack would mean that the administration ought to change the way it thinks.
It matters because news reports place some of the Benghazi thugs in Algeria, where their corpses were found after an attack that left 38 hostages dead, including three Americans. The New York Times reports that Algeria captured three Egyptian militants alive who where involved in both attacks.
I agree with Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., who said, "Barack Obama was not responsible for the Benghazi attack any more than George W. Bush was responsible for the 9/11 attacks."
But if there is evidence that the overthrow of Libyan leader Col. Moammar Khadafy has destabilized North Africa to an extent that endangers America's national security, the Obama administration would do well to confront that possibility.
The Senate and House hearings Wednesday were not particularly illuminating on that score. For the most part, Democrats fawned all over Clinton while Republicans bloviated when they should have been seeking specific information.
Republicans resumed their tireless efforts to get the Obama administration to come clean about the thinking behind Ambassador Susan Rice's appearance on "Meet the Press" and other Sunday shows on Sept. 16. Rice said, "What happened in Benghazi was in fact initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo, almost a copycat of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, prompted by" an anti-Muslim video. She also claimed there was no evidence the Benghazi attack was "pre-planned."
It is clear that the administration preferred to blame an American-made video rather than well-armed al-Qaida-inspired terrorists: The election was less than two months away.
So here's what matters. It matters if al Qaida-inspired terrorists planned this attack. It matters if the same group was involved in the Algeria killings. It doesn't matter if a few guys angry about a video somehow found themselves in the company of armed militants intent on killing a U.S. ambassador.
Debra J. Saunders writes for the San Francisco Chronicle. Her email address is dsaunders@sfchronicle.com.