House Republicans investigating Benghazi like to say the word "coverup" a lot, when invariably what they mean by "coverup" is that they believe administration officials and President Obama whitewashed events for a few days after the attack in Libya to minimize political damage to Obama's campaign.

This is a highly contestable interpretation of events, undergirded by deeply flawed logic—how is intentionally downplaying a terrorist attack, then acknowledging it, then retroactively making excuses for the original whitewash more politically advantageous than coming right out and saying it? But at least it's plausible. What it isn't, though, is a "coverup."

But they use that term because the right in America is consumed by the belief that Obama really tried to coverup the attack—perhaps hoping to lump it in with the other, less deadly uprisings on September 11, 2012—and that four Americans died as a result.

That would be a big scandal. It's just not what happened. And if Republicans had made a concerted effort to disabuse the right of its more paranoid notions, it's hard to imagine this tremendous appetite to create a special committee to investigate the propriety of administration talking points. Or its turf war with Congress.

But they didn't do that. And I think two different Benghazi news features last week help shed light on why, by helping to clarify the differences between conspiracy and reality, and which elements of the right believe what.