(Cross-posted at The National Memo)

We’re about to hit what has been a solemn anniversary in America for a decade — September 11.

But this year, Republicans, led by Fox News, are set to focus on a more recent terrorist attack — the one that claimed four American lives, including that of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, last year in Benghazi, Libya.

Making this tragedy into a scandal has been a Republican goal since Mitt Romney held a press conference to blast the president just hours after the attack occurred.

A year later, conservative activists still believe there’s a cover-up that needs to be exposed and even suggest that Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is protecting the president. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) suggested that the proposed strike against Syria is just an attempt to distract in part from Benghazi. And on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked liberal commentator Juan Williams to defend President Obama’s dismissal of Bengahzi as a “phony scandal.”

Williams had no problem doing so.

“You had an accountability review board come in and make 29 recommendations, and the State Department has accepted just about every one of them,” Williams said, citing a report led by George H.W. Bush’s former UN Ambassador, Thomas Pickering.

“You say this is not going away,” Williams said. “It’s gone away.”

Fox News contributor Karl Rove then responded with his most hilarious performance since he refused to let the channel declare that Mitt Romney lost.

“You may be comfortable with the American people being told a deliberate lie by the administration,” Rove said. “But I’m not.”

Ironically, Rove was not talking about the Bush administration’s falsehoods that led to the Iraq War. He was referencing the fact that former UN Ambassador Susan Rice delivered talking points she hadn’t prepared that represented the best intelligence available at the time.

Williams was unconvinced by Rove’s and Brit Hume’s insistence that no, there’s still questions that need to be answered, even though every question they asked has been answered by Pickering’s report or the House Republicans’ investigation.

“It’s gone, baby. It’s in your head. That’s the only place,” Williams concluded.

The evidence that Benghazi is a “phony scandal” is overwhelming. But pointing that out at the beginning of Fox News’ “Benghazi Week” won’t make the Republican desire to exploit another tragedy that took place on September 11 go away.

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