Throwing Rice: GOP Benghazi Beef Tasteless

7 months ago

Attack on Obama UN ambassador highlights rancor not shown an earlier Rice

In short, they’re calling the UN ambassador a liar. There’s a major distinction worth pointing out, particularly between Susan Rice and Condi Rice, whom McCain once praised as “a great American success story,” even as liberals openly questioned her integrity.

No further harm or death came of Susan Rice’s account that the Libya attack “began spontaneously … as a reaction to what had transpired … in Cairo, where there was a violent protest … outside of our embassy, sparked by this hateful video,” as she now infamously explained on CBS’s "Face the Nation." But it’s rather hard to say the same regarding Condi Rice. The former State Department head is on record saying Iraq and its now deceased president, Saddam Hussein, had no weapons of mass destruction and did not pose a threat to America and its interests. But she went back on that assessment not long after Republicans began beating the Middle East war drums, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars are the costliest and deadliest conflicts in American history. After she was made to face anti-war Senate Democrats and defend the administration’s intelligence failures – read “lies” -- in her own confirmation hearing to Secretary of State in 2005, Condi Rice seemed to benefit from being in the right and ruling political party in the executive branch.

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In a 2005 interview on CBS Morning News, McCain championed the former Bush national security advisor: “I thought that some of the remarks — and I’m not going to mention my [Democratic] colleagues’ names — some of the remarks aimed at her during the hearings challenged her integrity. We can disagree on policy and we disagree on a lot of things, but I think it is very clear that Condoleezza Rice is a person of integrity. And yes, I see this, as some lingering bitterness over a very tough campaign. I hope it dissipates soon.”

Caught that? “Bitterness over a very tough campaign” is precisely what’s staring President Obama and the Democrats in the face today, as they move forward on fiscal cliff budgetary negotiations. McCain and others’ hypocrisy on Susan Rice is staggering. But it’s evidence that there is no bipartisan kumbaya on the horizon in Obama’s second term.

In all fairness, Republicans are right to demand an investigation into whether State Department officials failed to adequately respond to reported requests for additional security for diplomats in Libya. But they seem to always trip on the one good leg they’ve got to stand on when, in ignorance of the past, Republicans open their mouths.

On NBC's Today Show, McCain tried to explain the difference in the treatment of the two Rices: