Right-wing politicians and their pals in the right-wing media just won’t let the flames from Benghazi smolder and die.

Benghazi refers to the U.S. consulate in Libya that was attacked on Sept. 11, 2011. Four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya. It was a terrible event. The right wingers keep stirring the pot looking for things to hang on Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was then secretary of state and is a possible candidate for president in 2016.

Then comes Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to weigh in today on the Fox News Channel. I caught a snippet of the interview today on TV while at work. He was offering up the usual stuff about accountability and trying to assess blame on Clinton over her department’s response to the chaos that erupted in the Libyan city.

Then he made the one point that caught my attention: He’s upset that “17 months to the day we haven’t yet brought the terrorists responsible for the attack to justice.”

Seventeen months later and we still haven’t caught the bad guys. Does that really upset you, Sen. Cruz?

Allow me to put this into a little different perspective.

Osama bin Laden plotted the attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, nine months into George W. Bush’s presidency. U.S. forces went to war the following month in Afghanistan. We looked for bin Laden and nearly had him in Tora Bora. He got away.

Then, after President Bush had left the White House, U.S. intelligence analysts located bin Laden in Pakistan. Nearly 10 years after the 9/11 attack, President Barack Obama ordered a team of Navy SEALs, CIA operatives and Army Special Forces pilots into Pakistan to kill the terrorist mastermind.

They did the deed.

It took a long while, nearly a decade.

I’m pretty sure we’ll get the individuals responsible for the Benghazi attack. It’s going to take some time. That’s how meticulous intelligence-gathering works.

Let’s stop the carping, Sen. Cruz.