Remember when Ann Wagner decided to feed the GOP’s carefully cultivated Benghazi conspiracy mania back in 2013? She made news in rightwing circles after coyly implying on the Dana Loesch radio show that (1) a “stand-down” order had been given to military personnel that resulted in the deaths in Benghazi, and (2) the President was the only official who could give such an order. We demonstrated all the ways that such claims were patently and obviously wrong at the time, noting in passing that the really interesting issue was simply the ambitious Wagner’s “willingness to dance the GOP crazy tango” when expedient.

Without folks like Wagner keeping this specific narrative alive, the millions of dollars of taxpayer money squandered on the endless inept House investigations could have been saved. As Michael Tomasky notes, the stand-down issue became:

… a central right-wing talking point virtually since the tragic storming of the consulate, which killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The idea is that our heroic men and women in uniform could have saved the quartet, but President Obama and Hillary Clinton didn’t want them to, because they’re weak and they want America to fail.

Only there was no stand-down order (see also here) and Republicans have known it for suresies since March – most of us had it figured out long before – well before House Speaker John Boehner set up a  “bipartisan” Select Committee that’s set to investigate this exact issue.

So what I want to ask Rep. Wagner is when is she going to apologize to the President? And then, when is she going to apologize to us, the taxpayers who got stuck for the bill that resulted from her efforts, among those of others, to keep the Benghazi time and money sink going strong? And will she now denounce what will probably be continuing efforts from folks like House Oversight Committee Chair Darrels Issa to beat this dead horse into the ground no matter what the evidence says? Shouldn’t I, after all, be able to expect exactly this type of stand-up behavior from a representative of the political party that carries on incessantly about accountability and personal responsibility when it comes to poor people? Isn’t what’s good for the goose good for the gander? So I want to know: will Ann Wagner ever take responsibility for her willingness to carry the fetid GOP Benghazi water