After Libyan militants stormed the American embassy in Benghazi, killing Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, the Obama administration offered an explanation of the attacks so divorced from reality that he and his cronies must think you’re an idiot to believe it.

At 9:30 pm Benghazi time on September 11, an assault began on the U.S. embassy compound. Militants fired rocket propelled grenades into the building and lit diesel fuel around the structure. Embassy staff escaped to a second compound less than a mile away. There, as the staff prepared to leave the second compound to Benghazi’s airport at 2 am, a second attack began.

Two American security officers were killed in a firefight outside, and mortar rounds fell on the building in which the remaining staff had taken refuge. Fathi al-Obeidi, a Libyan special-ops commander, was quoted in the New York Times: “It was really accurate,” Mr. Obeidi said of the mortar fire. “The people who were shooting at us knew what they were doing.”

Amazingly, as late as four days after the attack, America’s U.N. ambassador Susan Rice still denied that the elaborate, multi-stage attack had been premeditated. On “Face The Nation,” Rice told host Bob Schieffer, “We do not have information at present that leads us to conclude that this was premeditated or preplanned.”

Instead, that administration asserted that militants had infiltrated and seized control of an otherwise peaceful demonstration allegedly responding to a YouTube trailer of the anti-Islam film “The Innocence of the Muslims.” However, an al Jazeera report filed days after the attack cited eyewitnesses who said the area around the embassy was empty prior to the attack. That report is included in a 15-minute segment on The Rachel Maddow Show, which also discusses more likely motives for the attack.

Regardless, Press Secretary Jay Carney maintained that the attacks had spontaneously emerged from ongoing protests — while also labeling them a terrorist act.

Despite the widespread evidence on the ground, the Obama administration seems to think that the U.S. populous is dumb enough to believe that a well-armed, two-staged attack over 5 hours was just a spontaneous, uncoordinated mob uprising — but also a terrorist attack.

This isn’t the first time that the Obama administration has played loose with facts. Recall the killing of Osama bin Laden last year. The Obama administration originally stated that bin Laden had been armed, and had used a woman as a human shield. Both elements of this story were ultimately admitted to be false.

This seems to add to the mounting pile of distortions (and, alarmingly often, downright lies) coming from both Obama and Romney’s teams. The question that follows: are we still dumb enough to believe them?

(Image via)