Republican efforts to clean up House Majority Leader's Kevin McCarthy’s spilt milk about the real purpose of the Benghazi investigation may have gotten a bit harder, thanks to some remarks by Bill O’Reilly.

On The Five last week, O’Reilly discussed the political firestorm that arose after McCarthy boasted on Fox about the political damage the House Benghazi investigation has done to Hillary Clinton.

ERIC BOLLING: Did this whole flap with McCarthy saying it was political, the Benghazi hearings –

O’REILLY: It is political!

BOLLING: Did they hand her a “get out of Benghazi jail free” card?

O’REILLY: If you don’t think that the Benghazi thing is political – of course it’s political! But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t know what exactly happened and why the secretary of state was ignorant about the security problems in Benghazi, Libya. But, if you think those guys, those Republicans on that panel don’t want to bring down Hillary Clinton, you’re six years old. Because they do.

…I don’t mind that it’s political. I just want to get to the bottom of it.

O’Reilly, a history buff, is conveniently ignoring history here. As The New York Times noted (but “fair and balanced” Fox did not), There have already been seven congressional investigations into Benghazi that have found no serious wrongdoing:

Previous congressional investigations into Benghazi had already concluded that State Department officials had erred in not better securing the diplomatic compound amid reports of a deteriorating security situation. The investigations also concluded that the attacks had come with little warning and that it would have been difficult to intervene once they began. The investigations generally agree that the administration’s postattack talking points — a matter of much dispute — were flawed but not deliberately misleading.

The only thing more galling than the Republicans’ Benghazi obsession (helped along by Fox) is how they (and Fox) have simultaneously swept under the rug the far more serious missteps of the Bush Administration regarding the Iraq War.

In fact, “pro life” O’Reilly, himself, gave Dick Cheney a pass on Iraq by telling him, “I mean, as Americans, we’re all in it together. We’re all in it together. It’s easy to finger point… I don’t want to do that. …I’m not Monday morning quarterbacking.”

Apparently, we’re only “all in it together” with Republicans.

Not surprisingly, nobody pointed out that thousands more people died over the Bush administration’s needless but deliberate war than in the inadvertent Benghazi tragedy.

Instead, cohost Dana Perino went on to blame Clinton and President Obama as the real culprits in the Benghazi politicization.

Still, O’Reilly’s comments are noteworthy. As Jason Easley, at Politicususa, wrote, “Republicans can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Thanks to Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the word is out. Fox News has spent years whipping up Benghazi as a serious political scandal, so it is big news when their top rated host goes on the air and debunks one his employer’s favorite political myths.”

Watch it below, from the October 8 The Five. The Benghazi discussion starts at about 7:05.