The arrogance of the man who lied to the parents of the Benghazi dead in front of their sons' caskets as they were returned to the country they fought for is mind-boggling.  As he attempted to rewrite many chapters of his failed presidency in a speech at the University of Illinois, he called the accurate and documented reports of the criminal negligence of secretary of state Hillary Clinton and himself during the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on our Benghazi compound a mere "conspiracy theory."

Conspiracy theories don't produce body bags, sir, but perhaps you don't remember that night all too well because you spent the time four brave Americans were being killed under your command in Libya readying up for a Las Vegas fundraiser.

Kris Paronto, former Army Ranger and CIA contractor who fought with his colleagues on the roof of the CIA annex in Benghazi, remembers that night and tweeted his response to the then-president's arrogant and dismissive ridicule of their sacrifice and your incompetence:

Benghazi is a conspiracy @BarackObama ?! How bout we do this,let's put your cowardly ass on the top of a roof with 6 of your buddies&shoot rpg's&Ak47's at you while terrorists lob 81mm mortars killing 2 of your buddies all while waiting for US support that you never sent

Obama and Hillary had plenty of warnings that the security at Benghazi was woefully inadequate, that the compound was swimming in an ocean of terrorist training camps.  They ignored these warnings, and when the attack happened, they did nothing when a rescue mission could have been mounted.  Instead, stand-down orders were given to would-be rescuers, and following the attack, the infamous video lie was concocted and spread over the airwaves, with President Obama repeating it no fewer than six times in a speech before the United Nations.

Hicks, the last man to speak to Ambassador Chris Stevens, has exposed the video lie, documenting how he told Hillary's State Department what was happening in real time that fateful night and how her State Department ignored warnings from Chris Stevens and others about the gathering terrorist storm and the woeful  lack of security.

Now retired, private citizen Hicks goes farther, telling Fox News Hillary Clinton broke laws while condemning four Americans to death at the hands of terrorists:

Just as the Constitution makes national security the President's highest priority, U.S. law mandates the secretary of state to develop and implement policies and programs "to provide for the security ... of all United States personnel on official duty abroad."

This includes not only the State Department employees, but also the CIA officers in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.  And the Benghazi record is clear: Secretary Clinton failed to provide adequate security for U.S. government personnel assigned to Benghazi and Tripoli.

The Benghazi Committee's report graphically illustrates the magnitude of her failure.  It states that during August 2012, the State Department reduced the number of U.S. security personnel assigned to the Embassy in Tripoli from 34 (1.5 security officers per diplomat) to 6 (1 security officer per 4.5 diplomats), despite a rapidly deteriorating security situation in both Tripoli and Benghazi.  Thus, according to the Report, "there were no surplus security agents" to travel to Benghazi with Amb. Stevens "without leaving the Embassy in Tripoli at severe risk."

Patricia Smith, mother of Sean Smith, who fought and died for his country at Benghazi, spoke of Hillary's callousness at the 2012 GOP convention.  Smith focused in her riveting convention speech on Hillary's disregard for the families of the Benghazi dead:

I know a few things could've been done to prevent it.  But nobody's admitting to anything. Right now, my understanding is Hillary didn't do a damn thing.  And I wonder what she did as Secretary of State, because she disavows everything.  She disavows the fact that she even got any call for security[.] ... If this is her Department, she certainly doesn't know how to run the Department.  And she lied the whole time. She lied to me and called me a liar on TV[.]

The movie 13 Hours is based on the book, in which the three CIA contractors, Kris Paronto, John Tiegen, and Mark Geist, who fought at Benghazi, tell the tale of the battle they fought with Glen Doherty, Sean Smith, and Tyrone Woods in the terrorist attack that claimed the life of Ambassador Chris Stevens, whose name Hillary could not remember.

It confirms that Benghazi was not a spontaneous demonstration gone bad due a video, despite Susan Rice repeating that lie on five Sunday talk shows, and President Obama repeated six times before the United Nations.  Hillary Clinton knew that it was a lie, telling the truth to daughter Chelsea and an Egyptian diplomat before she lied to the parents of the Benghazi dead.  It confirms that rescuers were told to stand down.

Hillary and her State Department had warnings, including from Ambassador Stevens himself, that Benghazi was an unsecure trap in the face of a growing terrorist threat.  As Investor's Business Daily editorialized on documents unearthed by Judicial Watch:

The documents describe Libya as hardly the poster child for the Arab Spring, and echo warnings sent to State by Stevens himself.  He was aware of an attack on a convoy carrying the British ambassador to Libya and a June 2012 attack where an improvised explosive device blew a hole in the Benghazi consulate wall.  Nowhere in the 486 pages is mention of or concern for the effects of a video.

On Aug. 8, 2012, Stevens sent a two-page cable to the State Department entitled "The Guns of August: Security in Eastern Libya" and noted a dangerous "security vacuum" in and around Benghazi, as well as the presence of terrorist training camps.  He was ignored.

The documents reveal that, early on the day after the attack, the Pentagon received intelligence briefing slides detailing that the June 6, 2012, attack was tied to al-Qaida-linked terrorists seeking an Islamic state in Libya and who threatened to attack U.S. interests there.  It also said the June 6 attack "came in response to the 5 June (2012) drone strike on senior al-Qaida leader Abu Yahya al-libi."

That Sept. 11 was a terrorist attack was known before, during and after it took place.

"I personally ... think the (U.S. Africa Command) very quickly got to the point that this was not a demonstration, this was a terrorist attack," Gen. Carter Ham, head of the Command, testified behind closed doors in June 2013 before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

And that, Ham said, was the "nature of the conversation" he had with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey moments before a 30-minute meeting with Obama prior to the president resting up for his fundraising Las Vegas trip.

Hillary Clinton ignore the pleas for added security at Benghazi, the terrorist threat that was building, and then let pleas for a rescue fall on deaf ears.  Could a rescue attempt have been mounted?  According to Hicks, yes, it could have:

Hicks says he believes "if we had been able to scramble a fighter or aircraft or two over Benghazi as quickly as possible after the attack commenced" – around 9:30 p.m. that night – "I believe there would not have been a mortar attack on the annex in the morning because I believe the Libyans would have split.  They would have been scared to death that we would have gotten a laser on them and killed them."

Hicks, who was in Tripoli that night, relates how the Libyan prime minister called and told him that the U.S. ambassador had been killed, after which "the Libyan military agreed to fly their C-130 to Benghazi and carry additional personnel to Benghazi as reinforcements."

A Special Forces team was ready to go along but was forbidden from doing so by the U.S. Special Operations Command in Africa.

When Patricia Smith testified before Congress, most Democrats walked out of the room, turning their backs on the mother of one of those patriots abandoned by Obama and Hillary at Benghazi, refusing to hear her grief as she condemned what Obama now calls a mere "conspiracy theory":

With the exception of ranking member Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and Jackie Speier, D-Calif., 12 other Democrats on the Committee shamefully left the room and refused to listen to the testimony of Smith[.] ...

Mrs. Smith testified how President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary Clinton, among other top administration officials, approached her at the casket ceremony when her son's body was returned to the U.S.

"Every one of them came up to me, gave me a big hug, and I asked them, 'What happened, please tell me?'  And every one of them said it was the video.  And we all know that it wasn't the video. Even at that time they knew it wasn't the video. So they all lied to me."

Judging from Obama's speech, they're still lying.

Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor's Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.