That ellipsis? It represents booing from the crowd at Miami Dade College. Benghazi needs no introduction with political audiences around the country.

Anyhow, Ramos plowed through, noting that Clinton had emailed Chelsea Clinton to say that al-Qaeda “was responsible for the killing of the Americans.” Over more booing, Ramos trudged onward, saying that “some of the families claim that you lied to them” — especially Patricia Smith, the mother of State Department official Sean Smith, who died in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2012. Ramos played a clip of Patricia Smith on Fox News saying that “Hillary and [President] Obama and [then-Defense Secretary Leon] Panetta, [Vice President Joe] Biden and [U.S. permanent representative to the U.N.] Susan Rice all told me that it was a video when they knew … it was not the video.” Those comments by Patricia Smith have played into the much-discussed accusation that Obama administration officials, in the immediate aftermath of Benghazi, attempted to blame the attacks on an anti-Muslim video instead of terrorism — as part of a scheme to insulate themselves from criticism in advance of the 2012 presidential election.

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Responding to a Benghazi accusation requires a detailed tour through one of the most investigated incidents in U.S. diplomatic history. Clinton answered with words of sympathy for Patricia Smith, whose grief “I certainly can’t even imagine.” Then she said Patricia Smith was “absolutely wrong.” The talking points then rushed forth: Clinton pointed out that the officials cited by Patricia Smith were “scrambling” to figure out Benghazi in those hazy days in mid-September 2012; that she’d testified on Capitol Hill last fall for 11 hours about these events; and that Benghazi was politicized unlike other tragedies in which the United States lost personnel overseas.

Pressed pointedly by Ramos on why she had sent an email to her daughter about al-Qaeda (actually, an “al-Qaeda-like” organization) yet tell grieving families about a video, Clinton replied, “At the time I e-mailed with my daughter, a terrorist group had taken credit for the attacks on our facility in Benghazi. Within 16, 18 hours, they rescinded taking credit. They did it all on social media. And the video did play a role,” said Clinton. “We have captured one of the lead terrorists and he admits it was both a terrorist attack and it was influenced by the video. This was fog of war. This was complicated. The most effective, comprehensive reports and studies demonstrate that.”

The question by Ramos reaches back to that 11-hour hearing in October, when Clinton answered lawmakers’ questions about her Benghazi actions, again. And it tracks on a claim from Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) that Clinton is a “liar” for the apparent contradiction in her statements. That claim itself has stirred a fact-checking whirlwind, from The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, Breitbart’s John Nolte and the Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway. Holding the former secretary of state accountable for how she characterized an attack that killed four U.S. personnel is a worthwhile undertaking. It does make a difference.

None of which is to say that it’s the best Benghazi question for Clinton at a nationally televised debate where there’s little time to hash out the intricacies of post-attack Benghazi intelligence. Here’s the best question:

Ms. Clinton, a study that you yourself commissioned found that our diplomatic compound in Benghazi was unprepared for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2012, despite having sustained attacks in previous months and operating in a cratering security backdrop. When Diane Sawyer of ABC News asked you whether you wished you had acted differently , you said in part, “I take responsibility, but I was not making security decisions.” Is that the sort of leadership you will bring to the White House?