Posted on 11/29/2012 2:38:08 AM PST by Evil Slayer
In just two quick meetings on Capitol Hill, Susan Rice may have blown up any goodwill she had with the very senators she’ll need for confirmation if she’s ever tapped as the next secretary of state.
Over the past two days, four key Republican senators have emerged from private meetings to blast the United Nations ambassador’s explanation about what happened during and after the deadly attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
It’s not clear what Rice said behind closed doors to anger all these senators, but it’s obvious the meetings went badly and this was hardly a nominee-in-waiting charm offensive.
Even Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, just the type of moderate Republican who might help break a filibuster on a nomination, said there were still too many questions about why Rice incorrectly characterized the Sept. 11 assault in five Sunday talk show interviews as the result of spontaneous protests at the same time the Libyan president was calling it a terrorist attack.
“I don’t understand why she would not at least qualify her response to that question,” Collins told reporters after emerging from a 75-minute, closed-door meeting with Rice.
The Wednesday meeting in a secure briefing room in the Capitol basement came a day after a similar sit-down Rice had with three key voices on foreign policy and defense issues went terribly wrong. GOP Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte, all members of the Armed Services Committee, said they were more “troubled” about the Benghazi affair than they had been before their meeting with Rice.
And Graham and Ayotte went so far as to say they would place a hold on her possible nomination.
“If she were nominated tomorrow, I would hold her because we still have questions that have not been answered,” Ayotte told POLITICO
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
I don’t see how John Kerry is an improvement over Susan Rice, or Hillary Clinton, for that matter. We’re stuck with an anti-military, anti-American-power ideologue, in all cases. If we fight Kerry, we’ll probably get Dennis Kucinich.
Fighting these appointments is useless. Give the dude a blank check on the appointments and fight the policies.
Have you seen the hag lately? Looks shouldn't matter but they do.
As fugly as she was in 2008, she's twice that now and her looks aren't going to improve by 2016.
GREAT analysis ...
agreed . expecting senate republicans to take a stand is laffable
I’m guessing the Senators want to help Kerry get the job.
He’s reluctant to put Lurch anywhere right now, because that would open up that Senate seat and speculation is pretty heavy that Scott Brown would get back in the Senate.
Sounds like the talking points she was given this time didn’t work any better than the first set. Here is a woman that can really think on her feet...the whole damned administrations uses a TelePrompTer!
It is a delay of game strategy just like Holder. That dude should have been gone long ago. They just lie, or say nothing, or say you will know when the investigation is complete. All the while, they are stonewalling the investigation! We then get frustrated and give up. And all goes on just as they wanted it to. We are in deep doo.
If you had a chance
To get Lurch out the building,
Wouldn't you take it?
The republicans have got to stop bailing this president out of hot water. We need to say our peace and then stand out of his way. He will destroy himself and all around him.
My thought is that she is channeling a Holder tactic, avoid, deny, stall.....don’t worry, soon Barry will again proclaim executive privilege and this will all blow over.
Maybe “lurch” has got the goods on 0 and will let it out... and 0 knows it, so he’s desperately trying to keep “lurch” out.
Yes, the senators should’ve waited until her confirmation hearings, where she would be under oath, and then turned them into an open investigation of Benghazi.
“That is why Susan Rice was plucked from obscurity and thrust on the national stage. That is why Obama wants her as Secretary of State. He needs a Black-Woman with the credentials to go up against Hillary in 2016, and Susan Rice was his best shot.”
Haiku Guy, you may be on to something. I’ve thought that the Susan Rice feint was to assure that Kerry would be confirmed, as compared to Rice he’s mainstream, but given the way these guys think, I think you may have the better theory. We need long-term strategy like the Dems have, instead of getting led around by the nose by blowhards like Rove and Morris.
And what’s with these closed door meetings? These people are supposed to be working for us.
When Obama gets done with one election, he immediately starts thinking about the next one. Since he is not going to be able to run himself, he is thinking about his successor.
You wish he could spare a moment's thought for governing or solving the problems of the country, but he just doesn't have that in him. It would be like asking a dog to read Shakespeare.
Anyway, when it comes to succession (as opposed to seccession, which is another thread), the only thing Obama knows for sure is that he does not want it to be Hillary Clinton. But who do the Democrats have who can stand up to the Hillary juggernaught?
They don't have anybody... yet. That is where Susan Rice comes in, and why Obama needs her as Secretary of State.
Susan Rice is too weak and worked for the Clintons in the 1990’s.
The woman to beat Hillary is Liz Warren, not Rice.
Don’t have to wait . . . Congress has oversight powers, too timid to use them . . .errrr. . . . too busy working on more important things to use them . . .
Obozo promised transparency . . . except when opaqueness is needed for their version of national security (or some other political hackneyed excuse)
I've thought since this happened that, since the truth about Benghazi might have seriously damaged Obama's reelection chances, that Hillary knew what actually happened and had no intention of going out and lying to cover Obama's skinny rear end. I expect she told him where to shove it so he had to put Rice out there to lie for him.
Without getting into all the weapons running possibilities, simply the requests for additional security that were refused, and the refusal to send any help while the consulate was under attack, that was bad enough by itself to do serous damage to Obama. It had to be covered up just before the election and Hillary told him to shove it. And she probably got some advice from Bill on what to do, or not do.
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