The late, great Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was fond of saying, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts."
His adage has become a familiar cliche around Washington, but it took on new meaning after the House Intelligence Committee issued a unanimous, bipartisan report about the attack in the Libyan city of Benghazi that killed four Americans in September 2012.
The report forcefully dispelled the conspiracy theories that continue to swirl about the Obama administration's handling of the Benghazi affair. No matter. The Conspiracy Crowd simply refused to accept the facts.
"I think the report is full of crap," Sen. Lindsay Graham said on CNN. Speaker John Boehner also turned his back on the Intelligence Committee -- headed by fellow Republican Mike Rogers -- and reappointed yet another panel to produce yet another report on the same incident.
Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, got it exactly right when he said of the critics: "The only real objection we're hearing is that it contradicts a myth."
But in today's capital, myth is often king, especially if it serves a cynical and selfish purpose. The Conspiracy Crowd keeps Benghazi alive because it stirs up their conservative base, boosts donations, fuels ratings for conservative media outlets and potentially damages the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state during the attack.
"For some, no amount of factual documentation is going to change their Fox-driven conclusion," Schiff told The Washington Post. Even some Republicans flinched at their party's obsession with Benghazi. "I thought for a long time we ought to move beyond that," Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Benghazi is a perfect example of how myth masters reality. The Intelligence Committee said it "spent thousands of hours asking questions, poring over documents, reviewing intelligence assessments, reading cable and emails." They held 20 hearings and other events and "conducted detailed interviews with senior intelligence officials ... as well as eight security personnel on the ground in Benghazi that night."
The panel did fault the administration on two points, and for good reason: The security at the American compound in Benghazi was woefully inadequate; and the administration's initial explanation of what actually happened contained serious inaccuracies.
But these were honest mistakes, not malign deceptions, said the panel. They found no evidence, for example, to back up charges from the Conspiracy Crowd the State Department had ordered security forces to "stand down" and abandon the embattled Americans. Nor did they uncover any attempt by the White House to cover up what really happened.
But too often these days, myth-makers prevail. Facts fail. Spin wins.
Steve and Cokie Roberts can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail.com.