Dishonesty, Incompetence or Plausible Deniability?

I posted a detailed question on Facebook last night concerning the President, Benghazi, General Petraeus and just what, exactly, is being reported to the President by his administration.  A few of my conservative friends jumped on the question with mostly partisan responses, which I expected.  In addition, I was attacked andb/or ridiculed by some Obama supporters who decided my question was irrelevant and that I was merely attacking the President.  They (those on the left) refused to give any kind of real answer to the question. 

Perhaps I've earned those responses from Obama fans since I've been very critical of him and his policies since he's been in office.  I seem to disagree with nearly everything he stands for and believes politically.  That's the nature of partisan politics.  However, last night's question was a bit different and I was hoping for a serious discussion.  Whether they (Obama fans) believe it or not, I would be asking the same question of a Republican President or an Independent President because I believe the answer is important for the country.  I'll let people decide for themselves what's important to them when I post the question here as well.  Maybe instead of only partisan responses (I did get one non-partisan response that supported my asking the question), I'll get some intelligent and thought provoking responses that address the actual question rather than attacking the one who asked it.  (Yes - that would be me.)

I prefaced the question with the following (modified slightly to give you more detail):

President Obama and Vice President Biden initially said they were not told about requests for increased security in Benghazi and also stated numerous times that the attack on the consulate was a protest over a video that went bad.

Today (yesterday now) Obama said he was not told that General Petraeus was under investigation by the FBI until General Petraeus resigned his position as CIA Director. 

These denials of knowledge lead one to believe one of three things (and I'd like someone to tell me which it is):

1. President Obama knew about both of these things and is lying, or...

2. President Obama's administration is incompetent and operates on their own without informing the President, or...

3. President Obama's administration leaves him in the dark intentionally to give him plausible deniability on major events. 

So which is it?

As I said - it didn't take long for me to be attacked by Obama supporters. 

One person went on and on about how Obama won and that's all we need to know.  Another said "you are asking loaded questions to appeal to your audience and, as any 5th grade logic student will tell you, none of your answers can be absolute and be true or false!"

Yet another said "We don't know what has been going on in the White House and we shouldn't.  So I agree all your questions are loaded.  You expect a miracle to happen."

Excuse me but - we shouldn't know what's going on in the White House?  The CIA Director resigned and four Americans died in a terrorist attack on our  Libyan consulate and we shouldn't know what's going on?  It's blind allegiance like that which will lead to a dictatorship in the United States of America.  Certainly there are top secret things going on that the public has no need to know - at least at the time.  But let's not put a blanket over the White House and never inform the public of anything - especially from a President who promised transparency.

As you can see, no one actually wanted to give me an answer to a question that I find very relevant and important.  If the President is not being informed of what's going on in the world and in his own administration then there is a problem, particularly if the events he doesn't know about are  serious.  One has to ask himself why this is happening.

Is it because there is a failure in the system and agency heads are operating on their own without consulting or at least advising the President?  Do we want that to happen?

Could it be there is an unwritten rule that they don't inform the President of certain things because if whatever it is goes wrong, the President can honestly deny knowledge of it.  And gee - how good would that be (for anyone but the President himself...)?

The other option is that the President is being kept informed of all these occurrences but chooses to lie to the American people about what he knows.  As we've seen from the amassing evidence from Benghazi, lying to the people can come back to bite you if the lies are uncovered.  And it is my own personal belief that continued denial or delaying the truth about an incident because it's "still under investigation" for months or even years will eventually hurt a Presidency.

One of my more reasonable friends suggested that Robert Mueller, Director of the FBI and a Republican, may have deliberately not informed the President of the Petraeus investigation (and apparently was not legally required to) because he (Mueller) would "love to see egg on the President's face."  That may or may not be true but if it is - the President should consider removing him from his position immediately if he sees Mueller as a problem.  Since Mueller is a Presidential appointee, Obama has full authority to do just that.

If, on the other hand, these agency heads have instructions not to tell the President about things that could be an embarrassment to him so that he can save face by denying any knowledge of them, then the problem is not with the agency heads.  It lies with the President and his advisers.

And if the President is simply lying to the people about what he knew and when, it goes against one of this biggest campaign promises in 2008...  "If elected, I will run an administration of absolute transparency and will hold all accountable, including myself."

President Obama has just been re-elected to a second term by an unquestionable majority.  As I said last week - it would be really wonderful to see him begin living up to that '08 campaign promise and be honest and straightforward with the people of the United States.  For those of you who follow blindly without questioning what he says and does, I must wonder if you'll do the same thing when a Republican is in the White House.  I'm guessing not.  That makes you hypocrites.  And before anyone asks - yes, I criticized Bush.  I didn't have a blog or Facebook back then but I criticized him plenty.  But criticizing Bush today (and still blaming him for everything) accomplishes nothing, except maybe to make Obama supporters feel better about Obama's failures.  But that's not really helping the country, is it?

I still welcome somebody to give me a logical, non-partisan answer to my questions.  Regardless of your party affiliation, I'd like an answer free of emotion or ridicule, and without a personal attack on the President or me.  That would be refreshing.  You can even come up with another reason for what I've outlined if you have one.  I'd really like an answer based on reason instead of emotion.  I'll wait...