Via the Free Beacon, here’s Carney doing his own version of Hillary’s “What difference, at this point, does it make?” wave-off of an attack that killed a U.S. ambassador and three others. By “a long time,” he means seven and a half months. The Newtown murders happened four and a half months ago; the Aurora murders happened nine and a half months ago. Both were highly germane to goings-on on the Hill last month. Is there a different standard for foreign policy? The first alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria occurred in December, a week or two after Newtown, so maybe Carney’s inadvertently previewing O’s next big “red line” dodge. Sure, Assad might have gassed some people. But it was a long time ago.

What he really means here by saying it happened “a long time ago” is that hearings have already been held such that any whistleblower who wants to speak to Congress has had plenty of time to do so. Which is nice, but doesn’t answer the whispers in the press about diplomats being intimidated into silence; as Erika noted earlier, Darrell Issa is promising “new facts and details that the Obama administration has tried to suppress” at the next hearings, which may or may not relate to suspects in the attack. The book isn’t closed on this. Just ask the FBI:

#BREAKING: FBI releases photos of 3 people wanted for questioning in relation to attack on US Mission in Benghazi. pic.twitter.com/SmQFpGcmiV

— Aaron Katersky (@AaronKatersky) May 1, 2013