Yesterday, we learned that within 24 hours of something they would spend nine days describing as a “spontaneous” protest gone bad, the Obama Administration itself designated the attack on our Libyan consulate as a terrorist attack. And yet, days later, Obama would trot U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice out to all the Sunday shows to look the media and America in the eye with a wildly false story the White House had known for days just wasn’t true:

Intelligence sources said that the Obama administration internally labeled the attack terrorism from the first day in order to unlock and mobilize certain resources to respond, and that officials were looking for one specific suspect. The sources said the intelligence community knew by Sept. 12 that the militant Ansar al-Shariah and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb were likely behind the strike.

Further, an official said, “No one … believed that the mortars, indirect and direct fire, and the RPGs were just the work of a mob — no one.”

And it wasn’t just Ambassador Rice telling us something our government knew wasn’t true. As this timeline proves, it was also White House spokesman Jay Carney, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the President himself.

Today, thanks to some great reporting from the Daily Beast’s Eli Lake, we’re now learning that within hours of the Libyan attack, on monitored communications, U.S. intelligence overheard al-Qaeda militants celebrating their successful attack:

In the hours following the 9/11 anniversary attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, U.S. intelligence agencies monitored communications from jihadists affiliated with the group that led the attack and members of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the group’s North African affiliate.

In the communications, members of Ansar al-Sharia (AAS) bragged about their successful attack against the American consulate and the U.S. ambassador, according to three U.S. intelligence officials who spoke to The Daily Beast anonymously because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

As Charles Krauthammer pointed out last night during Brett Baier’s Fox News’ roundtable, the explanation for the White House cover up is quite simple: At their convention, Team Obama had just completed three days of spiking the bin Laden football and reassuring America that al-Qaeda had been decimated by smart power. Then it all blew up in their face. The Middle East exploded and al-Qaeda successfully executed a pre-planned assassination of our Libyan ambassador.

What to do?

What to do?

Well, when you have the media completely on your side, you use them as co-conspirators. So as the media distracted from the attack by relentlessly hammering Romney over his criticism of the Cairo Embassy apology, the Obama administration fabricated a fairy tale that would avoid game-changing headlines that might read: Al-Qaeda Assassinates Libyan Ambassador; Security Questions Raised.

It’s obvious now that the Administration and media are hoping to run out the clock. That leaves it up to New Media and a few legitimate reporters in the MSM to drip-drip-drip out the truth surrounding a first class scandal –a scandal in three parts: 1) The lack of security at the consulate. 2) The lies about this being the result of a spontaneous demonstration. 3) the cover up of numbers one and two.

But if what I’m seeing today is any indication, the media remains as guilty as the Obama Administration in what’s now known as ‘Benghazi-Gate’. Because the more proof of the White House cover up that’s discovered, the more the media disengages from the story.

Solely because it might damage Obama’s reelection chances, the biggest story in the country right now is not being told.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC