Republican strategist Jack Burkman on Thursday asserted that the 2012 attacks in Benghazi that killed four Americans were “much worse” than the original attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 that killed almost 3,000 people because of “the level of how things were ignored.”

In an panel segment on Current TV, host Michael Shure asked Burkman if he agreed that the Republican obsession with Benghazi was “totally about politics.”

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“Well, it’s about both,” Burkman explained. “This thing could turn into a Watergate. I don’t think you realize how bad this is. Obama — all of this — why did any of this happen? This happened because Obama is so afraid. He didn’t want to defend the embassy because he didn’t want to offend Islam. Then he didn’t want to call it an act of terrorism because he didn’t want to offend Islam. That’s fundamentally what it’s about.”

“There are reasonable ways to disagree on this, but to say he didn’t want to defend the embassy because he didn’t want to defend Islam… I’ll give you political advice too, stay away from that one,” Shure advised.

“But the evidence shows that,” Burkman insisted. “Strip aside all the politics and the theory. The evidence shows — take [U.S. diplomat] Gregory Hicks, these guys were trying to get through at 2 in the morning, they were trying to warn, they made so many repeated calls and contacts. What other conclusions can you draw? They were systemically ignored. I mean, I’ve just never seen or heard of anything like this.”

“Well, how about 9/11?” Shure noted. “Talk about systemically ignored.”

“I would say, oh, sure, 9/11 is much worse in terms of in terms of what happened,” Burkman opined. “But this is much worse in terms of the level of how things were ignored. It’s almost unfathomable.”

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Watch this video from the Current TV’s The Young Turks, broadcast May 9, 2013.