As BuzzFeed's Rebecca Berg explains, on Thursday morning McCain denied having received a letter he had requested from the White House about Benghazi:



"I have not received the letter," McCain told CNN Thursday morning. "They sent the letter to Sen. Levin. It was Sen Graham and I and Ayotte that asked for an answer. We haven't received an answer." In the interview, he said the letter's delay was a chief reason he was holding up a vote on Hagel's nomination. "I have to receive a letter, I have to receive a letter, see whether I receive a letter or not, and there are other questions that other senators have raised which are not answered as well," McCain told CNN.

So McCain said he was upset that Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) had received a letter with answers to his questions, but that he hadn't received it. Fair enough, except the thing is, McCain actually had received the letter—the very same letter that had been sent to Sen. Levin. The only catch: McCain had been cc'd.

The White House responded to McCain's concern by sending the exact same letter it had already sent to him, but this time it put him on the "To:" line and cc'd Levin. Problem solved, right? Sure, except by Thursday afternoon McCain had decided the reason Republicans were filibustering Hagel is that they are bitter about him saying they were wrong to support George W. Bush and Iraq.

This is all a dark comedy, really. Actually, more like a tragedy, because all this nonsense could have been avoided if a handful of Democrats hadn't killed filibuster reform last month. That's a mistake they can fix, however. Please sign the petition to tell Harry Reid: Re-open filibuster reform in light of continued Republican obstructionism.