By Richard Benedetto - May 11, 2013

For nearly eight months now, Republicans in Congress have been confounded by the apparent lack of public interest in, or concern about, what actually happened in the Sept. 11, 2012 Libyan terrorist attacks in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

But Wednesday’s dramatic hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee shined new light on the issue. It brought out more details of possible Obama administration mismanagement while the attacks were underway and potential coverup in its aftermath. Given the widespread media coverage of the riveting testimony by three State Department officials directly involved, Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Pentagon officials find themselves back on the defensive in a battle they thought they won long ago.

Actually Obama dodged a big bullet last September, when his GOP opponent, Mitt Romney, was overeager to attack the president on Benghazi and score political points at a stage in the campaign when the Republican found himself falling behind.

The former Massachusetts governor made the colossal blunder of jumping out ahead of the president in responding to the attacks. By doing that, he made himself a key player in the first news stories about the tragedy. That set him up as a target for critics when Obama should have had the hot seat all to himself. With that diversion, the pressure on the president to take sole responsibility was relieved, and in many ways deflected it toward Romney.

Had Romney kept quiet for a couple of days and let the president hold the spotlight to outline and defend his administration’s actions, the public might have seen the tragedy for what it was: Obama’s responsibility and his responsibility alone.

Instead, the crisis became as much candidate Romney’s as it was Commander-in-Chief Obama’s.

Through all the fog that followed, much of the public viewed it as just another partisan skirmish in the middle of a presidential election campaign, and wrote it off as politics as usual.

Here’s how Romney blew it: Before Obama said a word, and before most Americans even knew what happened in Benghazi, Romney jumped into the fray by emailing a written statement to reporters on the evening of the attacks charging the administration with misguided priorities. “The Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks," the statement said.

The following morning, again before Obama had appeared in public to comment on the attacks, Romney met with reporters accusing the White House of not only sending “mixed signals…to the world,” but also lacking in leadership in a very dangerous and crucial region.

Several reporter questions that followed focused on whether the speed, tone and tenor of Romney’s tough criticisms were appropriate when the crisis was still unfolding and all the facts were not known.

Romney defended his remarks as legitimate debate in the context of the presidential campaign and “the different courses we would take with regard to the challenges the world faces.”

That said, in the days that followed, Romney became as big a part of the Benghazi story as the president himself. And Obama, never one to miss a fastball when it’s grooved down the middle, quickly gained the upper hand when he said in an interview granted to one of his favorite TV correspondents, Steve Kroft of CBS, “Governor Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later.”

Thus, the media, which many Republicans believe have a liberal bias anyway, ran with the narrative that the president was being unfairly criticized in a crisis by someone unqualified to handle the job. Consider these early headlines that appeared to go easy on Obama and bash Romney:

-- “President Obama’s Libya moment,” Politico, 9/12/12.

-- “Mitt Romney’s foreign policy test,” Politico, 9/12/12.

-- “Obama on attack in Libya: ‘Justice will be done.’” Washington Post, 9/12/12

-- “GOP leaders less critical than Mitt Romney in response to Libya attack.” Washington Post, 9/12/12.

-- “Libya Attack Brings Challenges for U.S.” New York Times, 9/13/12.

-- “A Challenger’s Criticism is Furiously Returned,” New York Times, 9/13/12

-- “Mitt’s shameful Libya statement,” Salon, 9/12/13.

-- “Diplomatic Fury: Obama’s Impossible Position After Libyan Violence,” Daily Beast, 9/12/12.

-- “Obama vows to ‘bring to justice’ ambassador’s killers,” Chicago Tribune, 9/13/12.

-- “Romney’s Obama attack opens foreign policy debate,” USA Today, 9/13/12.

Romney’s credibility was so strained, thanks in large part to the effective counterattacks by the Obama campaign team and the blistering he received in the media, that he remained on the defensive over Benghazi for the rest of the campaign. He was so spooked that he timidly chose not to directly challenge the president on it during the third presidential debate. Instead, he got into a semantic argument over whether the president actually called it “a terrorist attack.”

Whether Wednesday’s House hearing will have any significant effect on public viewpoints toward the attacks, and who did or did not live up to their responsibilities, is still an open question. But those Republicans who say the Obama administration botched the response and then tried to cover it up would have had a much easier task if in the first few days Mitt Romney just kept his mouth shut.