Have President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Clinton and members of their inner circle deliberately lied or at least tried to mislead the American public about the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya?

Information now is available indicating the White House and top security officials knew of the attacks, with some individuals actually watching a live broadcast of the attack from drone video cameras. Also, emails report the attack was well-planned and carried out by terrorists, not a spontaneous mob in response to an anti-Muslim online film made in the United States.

The attack lasted seven hours, and a U.S. ambassador was killed along with three other Americans. No military assistance was ordered, which might have been possible from bases in Italy or from U.S. Navy vessels in the Mediterranean Sea.

For the next 14 days, Obama and his aides maintained the deadly action was merely a reaction to the film in question. They refused to acknowledge it was a terrorist attack, perhaps because Obama has made one of the pillars of his re-election effort that al-Qaida has been seriously wounded and is on the run — when, in fact, U.S. security and military officials point out that al-Qaida has been able to absorb and counter U.S. efforts and now is recovering and getting stronger in many areas.

Why hasn’t Obama been truthful, open and transparent about this deadly attack? What does he know and when did he know it? Is he trying to cover something up? Why has the so-called mainstream media been so helpful and defensive of the president?

The Nov. 6 election will be a national referendum on the Obama administration and his promise for openness and transparency, as well as on how the media have tried to protect and cover for the president.

The only news organization that has had the courage to seriously question the president is Fox News, which has been unrelenting in pointing out serious misstatements, errors or lies in the claims and facts offered by the president, vice president, his United Nations ambassador and others.

If this had been a George W. Bush fiasco or a situation such as Watergate, the mainstream media would have been going nuts. Watergate was about a bungled robbery and Richard Nixon not coming clean with the public.

The Benghazi attack resulted in an ambassador and three other Americans being killed. It showed U.S. officials had refused to supply added security personnel requested by the embassy staff before the attacks and, after the attacks, it took 14 days for the White House to acknowledge it was a terrorist action.

Compare the media reaction to Watergate to that of Benghazi. Didn’t Obama learn anything from Nixon about not telling the truth?

Did Obama pin his hopes on a friendly media and the assumption that any congressional investigation of the matter couldn’t provide answers until after the Nov. 6 election?

The big question is how can the public have confidence in the honesty of the president, particularly when he has made so much of being open and transparent in all of his actions, when he purposefully delays, obfuscates or lies about this deadly and embarrassing attack?

Also, what does this say about the media?