If you have any desire to know, from the inside, why Obama had to have known, early on, about what was going on in Benghazi, you need to watch this video.

This retired Lieutenant Colonel, at his own “peril,” describes the standard protocol that almost certainly involved Obama directly, not just in notifying him about what was going on but also in seeking his approval to defend Americans on the ground.

Here’s an excerpt of the colonel’s statement:

[T]he protocol says someone marched their happy little ass up to the senior guy standing next to POTUS and said, “Sir, ambassador in Libya is in peril.” …And evidently they were strip ready in [Sicily] and they would have the assets to penetrate the airspace, you know, an MC-130 papa, which is a C-130 specially equipped with electronic countermeasures. They didn’t need permission to enter Libyan airspace, okay?

I’m giving you a lot of Inside Baseball stuff, and maybe putting myself in a little peril by doing it, but the In-Extremis [rescue] Force, they would have been chomping at the bit to do this. It was turned down, POTUS [Obama], at his five p.m. Eastern time meeting with the principals, that’s when he put the kibosh on everything. It was a conscious act. It has to be because, you know, the In-Extremis Force is required to be prepared to do In-Extremis non-combatant evacuation operations for its geographic responsibility, the entire continent of Africa. So there’s always somebody ready to go, and the aircraft are always prepared to go. It’s maddening to say that there was not intelligence.”

And here’s the interview with Rush Limbaugh: