When Obama speaks ex cathedra, it is more than a simple lie. It becomes infallible doctrine that must be adopted by the entire party in order to preserve the fiction that Barack Obama is intelligent, truthful, and competent to be President.
An example of this type of statement is when he said in an early Democrat Primary debate in 2008 that he would talk directly with Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and that by doing so, he could defuse Irans nuclear and terror export programs. Instead of walking this statement back the next day, he enshrined this error as a cornerstone of his campaign and it became the fundamental weakness of his Presidential foreign policy.
Another example of this is his oft repeated promise that "If you like your doctor, you can keep him!" This was clearly and demonstrably not true under Obamacare, and the inability of the patient to continue current arrangements remains one of the primary reasons people resist the implementation of the rule. But Obama made this statement so absolutely and so emphatically that every Democrat was required to pretend it was true.
And now we come to his statement in last night's debate, full of bluster and high dungeon, that the suggestion that anybody in his team, whether the Secretary of State, our U.N. Ambassador, or anybody else, would play politics or mislead when we've lost four of our own, is offensive, and not what he does as President or Commander in Chief. This statement now becomes the new Reality According to Barack Obama. Unfortunately for the President, it is easily contradicted by any of a thousand easily verifiable sources. Defending this statement is going to lead to endless contradiction and will only make the President look like even more of a manipulative liar.
They're like a school of fish, moving in perfect unison.