The reason Benghazi is controversial has less to do with how difficult it has been to catch the perpetrators than with lingering suspicions that the administration did not act quickly enough and tried to deflect criticism by blaming the whole thing on a badly made, anti-Islamic video. Benghazi is raw with emotion, as was obvious when Pat Smith, the mother of one of the victims, demanded answers through Clinton via CNN.

Of course, Benghazi is a deeply personal and specific issue for Smith. But for many Americans, particularly those on the right, it goes to the heart of an alleged carelessness in Obama’s foreign policy. He could just as easily be criticized for the thousands of drone attacks he has ordered or the invisible red lines that he drew in Syria and then forgot about. But those decisions largely affected foreign citizens, whereas Benghazi is a tale of all-American heroes being let down by the incompetence of their own side.

To conservatives, it’s nothing less than a case of martyrdom. It could be Obama and Clinton’s Iran/Contra: the scandal that comes to define everything morally murky or simply inept about their time in office.