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The Spectacle Blog
In a Washington Post op-ed, Susan Rice says that she asked President Obama not to consider her for Secretary of State because “it became clear that [her] potential nomination would spark an enduring partisan battle” over her role in the administration’s response to the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi. But is that really the whole story?
As Seth Mandel notes over at Commentary, the controversy over Rice’s potential nomination wasn’t strictly partisan, and wasn’t all about Benghazi:
Republicans on the Hill had basically limited their critique of Rice to her misleading statements following the Benghazi attack. Liberals, on the other hand, made it personal. Dana Milbank suggested Rice had an attitude problem. Maureen Dowd said Rice was too ambitious and unprincipled for her own good–or the country’s. Yesterday at the Daily Beast, Lloyd Grove launched a bizarre attack on Rice that accused her of having a personality disorder. The left has also been driving the less personal attacks as well. Howard French said Rice’s Africa legacy is the further empowerment of dictators. Human Rights Watch’s Tom Malinowski knocked Rice for essentially enabling atrocities in Congo.
Meanwhile, it should not go unnoticed that Hillary Clinton made her opposition to Rice clear to officials in Washington, which may explain the avalanche of leaks and criticism and personal sniping that came from the left as soon as the battle commenced.
Rice says in her op-ed that she was speaking in good faith, based on the intelligence she’d seen, when she did her series of interviews the Sunday after the Benghazi attack. I believe her, but that’s hardly the crux of the matter. Why was she given incorrect information? We know that the intelligence community had info indicating that the attack was a planned operation by well-armed terrorist group, not a protest over a YouTube video that spontaneously turned violent. If the intelligence was ambiguous, why did they choose the latter, incorrect narrative rather than the former, correct one? Was the intelligence community’s judgment distorted by political considerations? And then there are other questions surrounding the attack: Why did the State Department deny a request for extra security? Why is the Libyan government too weak to provide reliable security itself, per its Vienna Convention obligations?
Most of these questions have little to do with Susan Rice herself. It may be that the administration is hoping to make the scandal go away by letting Rice fall on her sword; clearly Rice’s op-ed is an attempt to frame things that way. But that may not work — all of those questions remain — and if the administration wanted to fight for Rice, they could have easily made the case that Rice wasn’t responsible for the Benghazi affair. In fact, President Obama made that very case rather vigorously at a press conference last month when he responded to criticism of Rice: “If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody,” he said testily, “they should go after me.”
Now Rice is out of the running. That’s a striking reversal, and I suspect that the attacks from the left play a bigger role than most observers are acknowledging. While the conventional wisdom sees McCain and Graham taking Rice’s scalp, it may well be that much of the credit actually belongs to Hillary Clinton.
View all comments (21) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by John Tabin
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/12/13/who-really-sank-susan-rice
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RJ| 12.13.12 @ 9:51PM
John, Your analysis seems likely. Republicans aren't winning many battles these days and I doubt Obama would grant them a concession on this issue. An in-house battle among the Democrats is a more likely reason for Rice's fall. Of course they and the media will be happy to say that she lost the opportunity because of unfair partisan attacks by the GOP.
Mike Daly | 12.13.12 @ 11:37PM
Whether people realize it or not the Republicans just won a significant battle here. Rice was far more complicit in the Benghazi coverup than she's letting on, and the Republicans nailed her and Obama on it. Obama is not as strong as people think he is.
RJ| 12.14.12 @ 1:19AM
I hope you are right, Mike, but if this was the America of 10 or 20 years ago, the election would not have been close and the GOP wouldn't have taken the worst beating in the Senate races since 1964. I don't doubt you that Rice was actively involved in a coverup. Unfortunately, the victory of keeping this unqualified candidate out of the Secretary of State office, opens the door for another unqualified one, John Kerry.
Mike Daly | 12.14.12 @ 10:26AM
Yes, Liveshot Kerry is next in line, but given his own ineptitude it's a sign that the Democrats are not as strong as people think they are.
Jack in Wi| 12.14.12 @ 9:05AM
If Hillary, McCain and Lindsay Graham were against her she must have been all right. If they are for Kerry he must be worse then Rice.
Al Adab| 12.14.12 @ 12:25PM
Rice was the diversionary trial balloon to get the GOP to show their cards. Kerry, the unindicted traitor, will be coming along.
Occam's Tool| 12.14.12 @ 5:18PM
No, Jack, the fact that the Three Stooges opposed her doesn't make her "all right" except to a guy who threatened LBJ's life. (I wasn't too fond of LBJ except that he was an old fashioned Democrat who wanted to defend his country, which is sadly a group that is almost gone.)
Mike Daly | 12.13.12 @ 11:35PM
Ralph Peters has noted that Susan Rice read both the classified intelligence analysis blaming Benghazi as a terrorist attack yet testified as if the castrated unclassified analysis released by the White House was somehow true. Rice is far more complicit in Obama's coverup of betraying Benghazi and then lying about it than she wants to admit.
The idea that the useless Maureen Dowd somehow had a role in dissuading Rice from becoming Secretary of State ignores that the Obama regime is far weaker than people think it is.
hook| 12.14.12 @ 3:14AM
I think John is correct that there had to be some opposition from the left because had Rice been nominated, the media would have backed her unless she had offended someone or someone(s) on their side.
spike59| 12.14.12 @ 5:38AM
by all means, let's spread the credit around; but we need to temper our satisfaction with the knowledge that this dishonest, incompetent, dictator-coddling vermin is STILL drawing a paycheck from taxpayer funds for misrepresenting our nation at the UN
Ralph Gizzip| 12.14.12 @ 6:45AM
The GOP opposes Ms. Rice for Sec'y State because she either lied to the American people on all 5 Sunday news shows or was too gullible to question the information she was given. Folks on the Left, however, are accusing her of being "too ambitious and unprincipled" and having a "personality disorder". Remind me again of who are supposed to be the racists?
John Navratil| 12.14.12 @ 9:16AM
Ralph Gizzip,
Apparently, you need a refresher course. Please study the following until they are fully committed to memory:
(1) A Liberal is never a racist.
(2) A Black is never a racist.
(3) Minorities can only be racists to other distinct minorities. This can be hard to discern correctly and requires advanced studies in victimology.
(4) Whites can never be on the right side of a racist question - it's called original racism.
Get this straight and your life will be so much easier.
Occam's Tool| 12.14.12 @ 5:19PM
5) And Muslims are always the most abused victims of them all, trumping Hispanics and Blacks.
Joellen| 12.14.12 @ 7:24AM
So, ONCE AGAIN, the Clintons are involved in the demise of another woman. Now this should get really interesting. I cant imagine Obama allowing Clinton to dis one of his own peeps.
ncatty| 12.14.12 @ 9:49AM
Madame DeFarge Clinton, knitting away.
hook| 12.14.12 @ 10:19AM
ncatty, great comment. I do not think Hillary is a shoo in for anything contrary to what the media says. She is a horrible candidate and not likable.
She would be infinitely better than Obama but then again so would almost any governor or senator picked at random...maybe anyone.
Stan25| 12.14.12 @ 11:44AM
I also think that deep down Barry wants Lurch to be the next SecState, hence the non-fight about Rice withdrawing her name for consideration. That comes with the blessing of Hillary.
J.C.Eaton| 12.14.12 @ 12:46PM
Dearest Heaven this could be fun! I remember when a Texas Republican senator was nominated for SECDEF and had to undergo the blitzkrieg of an inquisition from his former "pals" from the world's greatest deliberative body. The libs didn't even oil the bore-brush. He was subjected to every insult imaginable and then left for dead on the hearing room chair. If the Repulicans have the testosterone and the good humour, think of how they could "John Tower" John Kerry.
Al Adab| 12.14.12 @ 1:35PM
If the GOP does no0t go to the mat against Kerry, the unindicted traitor, then direct action would become necessary. Remember, "dissent is the highest form of patriotism"... or so the left told us for eight years.
Oldefarte| 12.14.12 @ 12:58PM
No she is only to blame for allowing herself to be STUPIDLY used by her domestic terrorist handlers. If stupidity is a crime, then no doubt she is guilty. Benghazi is a subversive undercover operation by this government that should be exposed, investigated and its perpertrators tried, convicted and imprisoned from same. Hey, but it's all RACISM, right?????
CT| 12.17.12 @ 2:07AM
Count me disappointed that Rice did not get nominated. She would have made a perfect stepping stone to cross the Rubicon into Obama's skullduggery and worse. With Johnnie Francoise Kerry (USN-Vietnam, Cambodia, Boogie Street) the digging will require some very heavy lifting, as in enduring the insufferable ass and his high opinion of himself.