It most definitely matters where he was

Andrew McCarthy at NRO on the importance of ascertaining the Most Equal Comrade's whereabouts during the Benghazi consulate attack:

Why did AFRICOM fail to respond? “Basically,” he stammered, “there was a lot of looking to the State Department.” Unfortunately, we’re told Secretary Hillary Clinton and her minions were unclear “in terms of what they would like to have.” Come again? “They didn’t come forward with stronger requests for action.”

This Foggy Bottom focus had me groping for my pocket Constitution. Sure enough, Article II was as I remembered it. Much as Hillary Clinton may desire to be the commander-in-chief of the United States armed forces, that job does not belong to the secretary of state.

It was the solemn duty of the president to come forward with not requests butcommands for action. Why was AFRICOM hanging on the State Department’spreferences? Why were our troops hamstrung by what Lovell described as “deference to the Libyan people?” On the night of September 11, 2012, AFRICOM was not beholden to Mrs. Clinton or Tripoli. They answered to Barack Obama.

Of course, no one can answer to a commander-in-chief who abdicates his command, a commander-in-chief who is AWOL. A commander-in-chief does not get to vote “present.”

We do know a bit about what the MEC was doing:

 We do know that the president was informed about the Benghazi siege only minutes after it began — because military officials, who have felt obliged to account for their actions, have reported telling him about it. We know, as TheWeekly Standard’s Bill Kristol notes, that “while Americans were under assault in Benghazi, the president found time for a non-urgent, politically useful, hour-long call to [Israeli] Prime Minister Netanyahu” — a call made because Obama was wooing Jewish voters unsettled by his notorious disdain for Netanyahu, and thus a call it was in his interest to publicize. We have been told, moreover, that about five hours after learning that Americans were under attack, Obama had a phone call with Secretary Clinton — immediately after which, even as Woods and Doherty were still fighting for their lives, Clinton put out a statement spinning the Benghazi violence as the product of an obscure anti-Muslim Internet video . . . the same fraudulent claim Clinton subordinates had already made about the earlier Cairo violence.

Interestingly, the White House had initially — and apparently falsely — insistedthat the president had not spoken on the phone with Secretary Clinton or other senior cabinet and military officials. Obama’s sparse version of events changedonly after Clinton felt obliged to account for her activities in congressional testimony. Obviously, the president of the United States perceives no similar obligation.

And then he flew off to a Las Vegas fundraiser.

I'm very much looking forward to the hearings that Trey Gowdy's select committee will be holding.  We can finally subpoena the people we need to hear from, demand the documents we need to see.

When a Freedom-Hater tells you something is "settled" and that it's time to "move on," that's your cue to focus on that thing with even greater intensity.