It’s all so confusing.  People in the consulate are on the phone telling us they are being attacked.  We can hear the explosions.  Is there trouble there, I wonder?

A Navy Seal working at the CIA annex a mile away is reporting the attack and wants permission to go help the people under fire in the consulate.   And he wants me to send help.  Golly, should we let him help?  Should we send more help?

Nah.  Let’s just watch the action unfold on our live video feed from our drones over the battle.  Now, this is a real battle, right?  It’s confusing, because I’ve seen things like this on TV …and they usually turn out OK.

You say it’s real?  And you say Tyrone Woods called back begging for permission to go help our Ambassador and the others?  He’s pleading with us again to send in reinforcements as fast as we can?

I’m just not sure what to do.  Tell him to stand down.  We just don’t know enough yet to tell if an invading force attacking our consulate is a serious problem.  The important issue here is that I don’t need a problem in the middle of my campaign.

So now Tyrone Woods is back at the annex with the 20 people he rescued (against orders) and he retrieved the dead body of Sean Smith.  Ambassador Stevens is missing.  Woods is manning the machine gun on top of the annex building and he has a laser pointed at the terrorist’s mortar launching site.  He says our gunships can use that to target the enemy.  He is begging for help.  Should we mobilize to get a response team there as fast as we can?  We need your permission to cross the border of a country with military force.

I just don’t know.  It’s all so foggy.  We have Americans, outnumbered, desperately fighting for their lives and it is just not clear at all if we should do everything we can to help.

Later….  Mr. President, can you explain what happened on the night of September 11?

We are thoroughly investigating what I did and at some point, after the election, I’ll know what I did that night.   We may consider reporting that information to you at that time.  Just remember that in the fog of war it won’t be easy for me to find out what I knew, who I talked to, and what orders I gave.  You will just need to be patient while we sort it out.  Just know that I care very much about the safety of our people in Libya and that I relayed accurate information to Americans just as fast as I got it.