This is what the Republicans have been waiting for. With this news, they can now feel that their work in Congress is complete.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will testify Jan. 23 before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the deadly Sept. 11 assault on the U.S. mission in Libya.
That’s the word from Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the panel. He said in a statement late Monday that Clinton will answer questions about the raid that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi.
Clinton had been scheduled to testify last month but she suffered a concussion when she fell during an illness. She was later hospitalized with a blood clot in her head.
She’s also expected to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee around the same time as her House testimony. That date has not been announced by the committee.
Republicans cannot contain themselves tonight with the news that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was hospitalized with a blood clot. A brief scan of Twitter shows some of these “people,” and I use that word very loosely, as they expressed excitement hearing the unfortunate news.
These people just can’t figure out how common decency works.
Does ANYONE believe this Hillary Clinton medical BS???Clot?If she drops dead I’ll believe it.
Thanks to the lies of Fox News and the Republicans in Congress, one of the most qualified people ever to be considered for Secretary of State has withdraw her name from consideration. Susan Rice, whose only fault was repeating the official talking points regarding the attack in Benghazi, has decided that the confirmation process is “simply not worth it.”
Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who drew heavy criticism from Republicans over her statements after the September attacks on a U.S. diplomatic mission, withdrew her name from consideration for secretary of state on Thursday.
In a letter to President Barack Obama, she said “the confirmation process would be lengthy, disruptive, and costly — to you and to our most pressing national and international priorities. That trade-off is simply not worth it to our country.”
Obama acknowledged her letter in a statement that described her as “an extraordinarily capable, patriotic, and passionate public servant.”
She was thought to be a frontrunner for the post, which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she would vacate as soon as a successor is confirmed.
Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill appeared on Meet The Press today and defended United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice. Asked about Susan Rice and the roadblock Republicans are building to deny her the job of Secretary of State, McCaskill said;
“I think it’s terribly unfair what has happened to Susan Rice.
“I do not understand for the life of me — the talking-points came from the intelligence community, yet you don’t hear one criticism of [former CIA Director] David Petraeus. It was his shop that produced the talking-points that Susan Rice talked about, and she mentioned al-Qaeda in the interviews.”
McCaskill also compared Susan Rice to Condoleezza Rice, who worked in the Bush administration and promoted the Bush talking-points making it possible to start the war in Iraq.
“I mean, really? Is there a double-standard here? It appears to most of us that there is. A very unfair one. This is a strong, smart, capable, accomplished woman, and I think there are too many people over there that are looking for a scalp.”
Republicans led by John McCain and Lindsey Graham have vowed not to support Susan Rice’s nomination for Secretary of State if she is nominated by President Obama, and they claim the talking-points Rice used to describe the events in Benghazi is their reason to deny her the nomination. McCaskill correctly pointed out that these talking-points did not come from Rice, but this little fact makes no difference to Republicans.
A White House source is saying today that if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were to pick her successor, she wouldn’t choose Ambassador Susan Rice, but would instead go with Senator John Kerry.
According to reporter Michael Sneed at theChicago Sun-Times, the source said, “Hillary is not close to Rice, who is tough — but is not the friendliest person. And Hillary’s brief comment recently that Rice had done ‘a great job’ was considered underwhelming and tepid.”
The source went on,
“It would be hard for President Obama to back away from Rice, but he’s dealing with what’s known as ‘the Club of the Senate,’ which includes powerful U.S. Sen. John McCain — a Republican — who is adamantly against Rice and a big supporter of Kerry’s.”
Although the White House has made no official announcement yet regarding the next Secretary of State, a decision is expected soon.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. John Kerry is angling to be the nation’s top diplomat by being, well, diplomatic.
The longtime Democratic lawmaker from Massachusetts has largely stayed quiet while President Barack Obama considers him for the next secretary of state. Kerry has asked his supporters to avoid overt lobbying of the White House on his behalf. And he’s defended his chief rival for the post, Susan Rice, amid Republican criticism of her initial explanation of the attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya.
Kerry’s strategy reflects what people close to the senator say is his disdain for some aspects of Washington’s personnel politics. But it also underscores his awkward role in the process. If Obama taps Rice for the job Kerry covets, the senator would have to shepherd her difficult nomination through the foreign relations committee he chairs.
White House officials say Obama is still mulling over his pick to replace outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, though a decision is expected soon. Rice, who has a close relationship with the president, is widely viewed as the favorite. But Kerry’s stock may be rising as GOP lawmakers threaten to hold up Rice’s confirmation until they’re satisfied with her answers about the early public statements about the Benghazi attack.
But don’t expect Kerry or his allies to make his case to Obama as the president nears a decision, as is standard practice for people who are on a short list for a new job. People close to the senator say he finds backroom lobbying for top jobs irritating and counterproductive. That view, they say, is shaped from his experience on both sides of the process: as a contender for previous high-level jobs and as the one making the decision in 2004, when he tapped John Edwards as his running mate during his presidential bid.
“John Kerry is very seasoned at how personnel decisions get made by chief executives,” said Michael Meehan, a former Kerry aide. “He wouldn’t be out there advising anybody on how to make this decision.”
While Rice has several high-level advocates in the White House, particularly among advisers who have been with Obama since his 2008 campaign, Kerry has his fans within the administration as well. He backed Obama early in his 2008 presidential run and was under consideration to be his first secretary of state. More recently, Kerry spent months helping Obama with his campaign debate preparations, playing the role of Republican nominee Mitt Romney in practice sessions.
Rachel Maddow has a very interesting take on why Republicans – led by John McCain and Lindsey Graham – are so against the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice. And according to Maddow’s theory, the reason has absolutely nothing to do with Rice’s ability to do the job and everything to do with another Massachusetts Senator, John Kerry.
Maddow explains: Ambassador Rice is one of two candidates reportedly on the short list to become the next Secretary of State after Hillary Clinton. The other candidate on that short list besides Rice, is Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. And if somehow Susan Rice is disqualified from becoming Secretary of State and President Obama picks John Kerry instead, guess what happens in the United States Senate… Massachusetts suddenly has an open Senate Seat, as well as a certain Republican Senator from that state [Scott Brown] who is basically sitting around doing nothing since he just lost his re-election effort [against Elizabeth Warren].
In her typical way, Maddow breaks it down like this:
Tom Ricks went into the lion’s den and poked the lion right in the eyes. Mr Ricks, the author of The Generals and Senior Fellow at Center for a New American Security, went on Fox News and told the Republican network the truth, that Benghazi was pushed by the network because they thought there were some political benefits for the Republican party.
I’m pretty sure Tom Ricks has permanently lost his pass to Fox News.
John McCain and his Republican friends would not be happy hearing this. According to official reports, the White House had absolutely nothing to do with replacing the words, “al Qaeda” with “Extremists” in the talking points Susan Rice repeated on the Sunday talk shows.
The intelligence community — not the White House, State Department or Justice Department — was responsible for the substantive changes made to the talking points distributed for government officials who spoke publicly about the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, the spokesman for the director of national intelligence said Monday.
….The initial version included information linking individuals involved in the attack to al Qaeda, according to a senior U.S. official familiar with the drafting of the talking points. But when the document was sent to the rest of the intelligence community for review, there was a decision to change “al Qaeda” to “extremists.” The official said the change was made for legitimate intelligence and legal reasons, not for political purposes.
Republicans led by John McCain, have hoped and prayed that someone in the White House – preferably President Obama – changed those words. Their hope was presenting the Obama administration in a negative light, engaging in a cover-up of the unfortunate events that took the lives of four Americans in Benghazi Libya.
Now that this information is cleared up, are the Republicans going to stop their baseless witch-hunt on Susan Rice? Don’t bet on it. After this news broke, 97 Republicans signed a letter urging President Obama to avoid nominating Susan Rice for Secretary of State.
Susan Rice has over 20 years of diplomatic experience. She is the United States Ambassador to the United Nations and has the experience and education necessary to represent America as Secretary of State. Why then, are Republicans hellbent on denying her nomination? Said Marcia Fudge, the next chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus:
“All of the things they have disliked about things that have gone on in the administration, they have never called a male unqualified, not bright, not trustworthy. There is a clear sexism and racism that goes with these comments being made by unfortunately Sen. McCain and others.”
John McCain is doing a fantastic job of playing the role of the grumpy old man. He has embraced this role since losing to President Obama in 2008 and he sees a clear benefit to continuing his role today in 2012. The killing of four Americans in Benghazi has been McCain’s most recent trophy, and he is trying to use this trophy to hit the president and his administration on the head.
Since Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed on September 11th, 2012, Republicans led by presidential loser Mitt Romney have tried to blame President Obama. The blame game began before knowledge of the American deaths were known as Mitt Romney held a press conference while the attacks were happening, calling the uprising in Libya “the downfall of President Obama’s foreign policy.”
The killings happened at an unfortunately ideal moment, as Muslims all over the Middle East responded to a “movie” made by a right-wing nut-job here in America. Egyptians marched in protest to the movie that depicted their leader in many disparaging ways and in Libya, more protests against the movie occurred. People marched to a compound in Benghazi where Ambassador Stevens worked and rocket-propelled grenades exploded in the compound killing the four Americans.
At this moment when the news finally made it back that Americans actually died, Mitt Romney had already wrapped up his press conference blaming President Obama. That was a little over two months ago and since then, Mitt Romney lost the general election. Leave it up to John McCain to carry on Romney’s fight.
So now, John McCain has the administration in his sights and more specifically, the United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice. Rice could President Obama’s nominee to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, but soon after the events in Benghazi, Rice went on the Sunday television talk shows and repeated the information she knew at that time – that the attack in Benghazi was not an act of terrorists, but the result of the uprising against the movie.
That was the information Susan Rice had before the formal investigation was made, but John McCain thinks there is a bigger story here. Without any proof whatsoever, McCain and the Republicans are continuing to push this issue hoping that somehow, it leads to the doorstep of President Obama. And McCain is willing disapprove any nominee for Secretary of State until the President is impeached for… something.
Doing how own rounds on the Sunday talk shows, McCain was heard saying;
Under the present circumstances, until we find out all the information as to what happened, I don’t think you would want to support any nominee right now. Because this is very very serious and it has even larger implications than the deaths of 4 Americans. It really goes to the heart of this whole light foot print policy that this administration is pursuing.
The American people have spoken in the election, and based on the results of the elections they want a government capable of working together to solve the pressing issues of the day. But given McCain’s present goal to bring down this administration at any cost necessary, including pushing baseless and fact-less stories, it seem that working together for the benefit of the country is not the path McCain wishes to pursue.
Apparently McCain still has some ill feelings towards this president and the need for the country to have an effective Secretary of State will take a back seat to McCain’s own personal feelings.
The story of Benghazi has now been magnified by partisan Republicans to a point of no return, and their to somehow tie the Obama administration to the unfortunate events that took the lives of four Americans, is appalling. With absolutely no facts to back up their claim that the president “intentionally lied” to Americans about the events in Benghazi, Republicans have found themselves in a position where they are grasping at the air for something to hold on to.
Take for example what happened on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 on Friday. Cooper invited Republican Dana Rohrabacher to his show and offered the congressman an opportunity to defend his position that President Obama intentionally mislead the American people. Rohrabacher used his time to continue calling the President a liar.
When asked by Anderson to prove where Obama lied, the Republican congressman took a page from the Mitt Romney playbook on lying and he dug in even more, raising his voice in a shouting match with himself, trying to drown out Anderson Cooper’s rebuttal that what he was saying “was factually not correct.”
Mr. Cooper tried telling the Republican that James Clapper‘s office – Director of National Intelligence – were the ones informing the administration of the events in Benghazi, and that whatever the administration told the American people came from the National Intelligence office. Cooper then asked if the National Intelligence Office was also lying. The Republican, feeling cornered by the truth, yelled some more.
The big story now, in the Republican circles at least, seems to be the tragedy that happened in Benghazi Libya on September 11th 2012 when four Americans including Ambassador Chris Stevens were killed. The Obama administration originally said that the attack on the Embassy was the result of a hateful video against Islam, a video that caused violent uprising in many Islāmic nations.
After an investigation, it was determined that the American Embassy was the target of a terrorist attack. It was also revealed that the Embassy may have requested extra security before the attack happened.
Republicans led by Mitt Romney, saw some political benefit in attacking the Obama administration for not “providing the necessary security” the Embassy requested, and they have harped on this over the last few weeks. But a new report is shedding more light on this claim and the reason more security wasn’t sent to Benghazi.
It seems that Republicans, including the Republican vice president candidate Paul Ryan, voted to cut funding to the very department responsible for paying for extra security. The New York Times reports;
The ugly truth is that the same people who are accusing the administration of not providing sufficient security for the American consulate in Benghazi have voted to cut the State Department budget, which includes financing for diplomatic security. The most self-righteous critics don’t seem to get the hypocrisy, or maybe they do and figure that if they hurl enough doubts and complaints at the administration, they will deflect attention from their own poor judgments on the State Department’s needs.
But as part of the Republican majority that has controlled the House the last two years, Mr. Issa joined in cutting nearly a half-billion dollars from the State Department’s two main security accounts. One covers things like security staffing, including local guards, armored vehicles and security technology; the other, embassy construction and upgrades. In 2011 and 2012, President Obama sought a total of $5 billion, and the House approved $4.5 billion. In 2009, Mr. Issa voted for an amendment that would have cut nearly 300 diplomatic security positions. And the draconian budgets proposed by Mitt Romney’s running mate, Representative Paul Ryan, would cut foreign affairs spending by 10 percent in 2013 and even more in 2016.
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