Eleanor Clift, a political columnist for The Daily Beast and who is a regular on The McLaughlin Group, shocked viewers on Friday’s airing when she asserted that the slain Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, died of smoke inhalation during the Benghazi terror attacks. Clift called Benghazi a “political witch hunt”  and that the controversy “animates the right wing of the Republican Party and I would like to point out Ambassador Stevens was not murdered. He died of smoke inhalation in the safe room.”

Pat Buchanan then pointed out that it was in fact “a terrorist attack.” Clift, clinging to talking points that even Democrats have departed from raged, “[i]t was an opportunistic terrorist attack that grew out of that video.” Suffocation via building and mortar fire apparently doesn’t constitute intent. Smoke just happened. Or something.

Stevens, 52, is the first United States Ambassador to die on duty during a violent assault since 1979.