Obama administration officials are feeling the pressure to answer some basic questions about their responsibility for what happened September 11 in Benghazi. As has become very clear, the administration doesn’t want to answer the questions, such as what the president did and didn’t do that evening; what military assets were available and why, if certain ones were available, they weren’t deployed; why senior Administration officials claimed subsequently that what happened was a riot caused by a video; and so forth. But stonewalling looks bad.

So the administration gave the Washington Post‘s David Ignatius access to their “timeline,” one that might appear to provide some useful information. Except it doesn’t. It’s basically an exercise in misdirection.