John McCain had a contentious appearance on CBS News’ This Morning today, which is not to say he had a tough appearance.  After scoffing at the initial Obama administration’s story that the sacking of the Benghazi consulate came from a spontaneous demonstration gone bad, McCain suggested that the White House put out that fantasy story line to bolster their contention that al-Qaeda presents no threat after the demise of Osama bin Laden.  Norah O’Donnell tried to challenge McCain on his conclusion that heavy weapons and coordinated fire couldn’t be a spontaneous demonstration, which McCain handles in rather short order.  O’Donnell and Charlie Rose quickly change the subject after McCain directs his scorn towards O’Donnell:

Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., has been highly critical of the Obama administration’s handling of the U.S. Consulate attacks in Libya and Thursday morning, he called the response of the White House, along with Ambassador Susan Rice and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “unbelievable. The senator maintained there is no way that it was a spontaneous attack. “Like they say, ‘Come on honey, bring your mortars, we’re going to a spontaneous demonstration,” McCain said of the claims that the violence escalated from an impromptu demonstration outside of the consulate building.

“It was obvious…this was a planned attack,” he said Thursday on “CBS This Morning.” He was referring specifically to comments made nearly two weeks ago by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice who said the attacks that lead to the death of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, were “spontaneous.”

“It shows a fundamental misunderstanding of warfare and what’s going on in that part of the world,” McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said.

“Anybody who understands warfare knows that is not a spontaneous demonstration,” he said. “They carried heavy weapons, mortars, RPGs,” adding, “I think this was an orchestrated attack.”

McCain also scolded the White House for at least “incredible naiveté” in their insistence on blaming the attack and other embassy sieges — which are still in progress, by the way, and spreading — on a months-old YouTube video.  The radical Islamists behind the terror networks are using the video to stoke the riots, but it’s simple PR exploitation for their larger purposes.