The pants down scandal involving two generals, a biographer, a socialite, and the real-life Olivia Pope is taking away attention from what’s most important: We still need to get to the bottom of what really happened in Benghazi on September 11th.  Benghazi was attack on Americans, and Republicans making the loss of four Americans into a partisan witch hunt scapegoating accomplished civil servants, including U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and others is unacceptable.  This shouldn’t be about partisanship; It’s about patriotism.

So when the media attention is focused on partisan attacks, letters from House Republicans attacking Susan Rice (who they don’t even have the authority to confirm as Secretary of State!), and illicit details of shirtless pictures from FBI agents and flirty emails they are doing us all a disservice.

Media and partisans alike need to quit it and get serious.  The election should have at a least created some space to speak like adults and no topic is more serious than terrorist attacks on Americans at home or abroad.

Susan Rice is not to blame for Benghazi.  She was given talking points by the intelligence community who didn’t want her to make tenuous claims in public, removing language directly linking the attack to Al Qaeda and terrorism.

General David Petraeus also isn’t to blame for Benghazi.  And no, his resignation from head of the CIA isn’t either because someone has to take the fall as many on the Right have alleged.  It’s likely an issue of national security that Petraeus could be blackmailed by someone who has access to his Gmail account.

Those who attacked our citizens abroad are to blame.  There was once a time when we all understood that and united behind our common identity as Americans.  Sadly, that is no longer the case. Yet, bickering and scandal won’t bring peace and comfort to the families of those who were lost.

Ambassador Christopher Stevens’ family doesn’t care whether socialite Jill Kelley emailed a general a couple hundred times to flirt.  That story shouldn’t be conflated in media coverage or on Capitol Hill, with Benghazi, nor should coverage dominate the attack in Benghazi.

A “gate” like scandal eludes partisans and thus Benghazi has become the go to for conservatives itching for hearings and impeachment talk. The Petraeus affair is a personal matter which rightly cost him his job and security clearance.  The attack on the American consulate in Libya is an attack on America, meaning all of us. Someone should remind the Republican party that this should still mean something to this country, no matter how divided we may be.