This is the same basic theory Frank Gaffney espoused in the Washington Times today – namely, that the “consulate” in Benghazi wasn’t actually a consulate but a “safe house” of sorts and a facility used by our ambassador to run guns through the Al Qaeda militants there to the Al Qaeda militants in Syria.

Remember how 9/11 was “blowback” for our having armed the Afghan mujahedin? We heard that story from the Left for an entire decade – or at least up until Obama was president, after which it was no longer interesting. There is a shred of truth to the idea that we were shipping weapons to a bunch of jihadists who ultimately turned on us, though for the most part the holdovers from the Afghan War of the 1980’s who were still around in 2001 were the folks who made up the Northern Alliance – and the Taliban was for the most part a group of people who had been raised in Saudi-funded madrassas in Pakistan while the Afghan War was going on and flooded back in for the civil war after the Soviets left.

But even allowing for some truth in that story – if it was dumb to arm the mujahedin in the 1980’s, how smart is it to arm the jihadists now? At least the mujahedin hadn’t done anything to us at the time we helped them. This crowd has been actively seeking to kill Americans for a decade, and we’re doing business with them.

Anyway, let’s turn this over to Beck and then a closing question…

OK, now the closing question. Which is this: assuming Beck and Gaffney have it right, and they might well have it right because we’re certainly arming Syrian rebels and most of them seem to be jihadists, and six weeks after the attack there has been a shockingly minimal response to date in terms of retribution – much less a credible explanation from the government as to what actually happened…assuming they’re right about this theory, exactly what was it that produced this attack?

Did we somehow double-cross the local Al Qaeda affiliate we had armed to take down Qaddafi, and the attack was retribution for it? Or was this a classic case of the scorpion stinging the frog it was riding across the river?

Either way, it’s a massive failure on lots of levels, and either way it’s a bitter disgrace that the Obama administration has decided to stonewall the public until after the election about what it was doing in Benghazi and what happened to our people there.

UPDATE: The Right Scoop has a little more Beck video, this time of Beck doing his chalkboard act in an attempt to trace how this gun-running operation between Libya, Turkey and Syria worked.

UPDATE #2: And then there’s Ed Klein, who clearly has sources close to the Clintons (read his book The Amateur if you’re not sure about that, and you’ll come to a similar conclusion to ours). Klein was on Glenn Beck’s radio show – Beck is beginning to absolutely own the Benghazi story, in case you haven’t figured that out – earlier today and had some fascinating information to share courtesy of those sources…

Now the question is Hillary Clinton knew as well. The question that the press should be asking today is who gave the order to not go in and save these guys? Who made the decision, “Do not launch a plane, do not send a Marine?” Who made the decision “Let them die”? Hillary Clinton stepped up and she said she takes full responsibility. However, Ed Klein was on with Andrew Wilkow last night and he says that the Obama administration knew and Hillary requested extra security, she requested things, she was overridden, and Bill Clinton stepped in, and I’ll let him tell you the rest of the story. Ed is here. Ed Klein, welcome to the program, sir.

KLEIN: Again, how are you?

GLENN: I’m very good. I’m a little ‑‑ I’m nervous about this information because I don’t know your sources, and you’re the only one saying it. And this is quite a charge to make.

KLEIN: Well, I’ve been saying a lot of things that I’ve proved to be true including the fact that I put an op‑ed piece out on the Daily Caller not so long ago saying that all the traffic between Libya and the State Department was, in fact, being monitored by the National Security Council which monitors these kinds of traffic so that even before the attack, Glenn, before the attack, they knew in the National Security Council which, of course, is located in the West Wing of the White House ‑‑

GLENN: Yes.

KLEIN: ‑‑ that there was a severe security threat to this consulate, and Hillary, according to my sources ‑‑ and I’ve got very good sources on this, I give you my word.

GLENN: How many sources do you have?

KLEIN: I have two sources.

GLENN: Okay.

KLEIN: Two separate sources on this. And Hillary claims, and I tend to believe her, that she ordered beefed‑up security in Benghazi because it had been requested and that this order was never carried out and that furthermore when and if she is subpoenaed, along with her internal memoranda and the cable traffic from the State Department by the House committee, it will prove that she did just that.

Now, if it doesn’t prove that she did just that, then they’re lying to me, and the sources are ‑‑ you know, I’m not suggesting that that’s impossible, but I seriously doubt it since I’m talking to legal counsel to Hillary Clinton. Legal counsel. These people don’t generally lie.

PAT: Ed, if that happened, why did she then later accept full responsibility for what took place? Why would she do that?

KLEIN: This was a big debate within the Clinton camp itself, between Hillary and Bill. Bill did not want her to take full responsibility. He wanted her to, in fact, consider the possibility of even resigning if the White House continued to try to make her the scapegoat in this. Hillary and her legal team decided she should look presidential, above ‑‑ she should look moderate, she should come forward and say, “Look, I take responsibility. I’m the Secretary of State” and by comparison making the president look a hell of a lot smaller because he was ducking all responsibility and knowing full well that when the full story came out, she would be, in her words, or at least the words of her legal counsel, exonerated.

There’s a lot more to the interview, plus the video feed of it.

And it begs – pleads – for a Congressional hearing at which Hillary Clinton is subpoenaed to talk about what she knew, when she knew it, what she suggested and who short-circuited her recommendations if in fact Klein’s sources are correct. One imagines Hillary would welcome that opportunity. Because it will destroy her along with everyone else involved if she’s not able to extricate herself through proof that she took action to prevent the Benghazi massacre in advance and that action was squashed by higher-ups.

As these skeletons tumble out of the closet, Mitt Romney’s decision to step aside and let Benghazi explode without his involvement begins to look better and better.