From the WaPo:
“Bottom line, I’m more disturbed now than I was before,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the critics, said after the meeting.
….
The Republican senators have repeatedly said they are concerned with how Rice explained what caused the Benghazi attack during a series of Sept. 16 appearances on Sunday political talk shows. At the time, Rice said that a spontaneous demonstration led to the violence, a claim later debunked by intelligence officials and reports from the ground.
Huh?
I could understand them having questions about security arrangements on the ground. And I could understand them expressing disagreement with the U.S. response. But making this all about what Rice said on the talk shows or what the President said in the Rose Garden is just bizarre.
It really speaks to the magical thinking that drives Republican foreign policy views. For them it is all about saying the proper incantation in the right order. As if some saying some combination of the words “terrorism, Islamist, freedom, resolve, and missile defense” somehow fixes everything.
Remember this is nothing new. All through the Bush years, the dominant perspective on the right wasn’t that Bush was screwing things up all over the place. The dominant perspective was that people just didn’t understand what we were up to, and that you know, if we could just explain ourselves, everything would work out great. So, Iraq wasn’t a problem of an idiotic strategy and incoherent goals, but rather of public communication.
The rest of us noted this was a “lipstick on a pig” problem. Well, that’s the GOP response to Benghazi in a nutshell. The situation was a disaster. An ambassador died. There are legitimate issues that serious people might want to address, but instead, the GOP is arguing that the lipstick was the wrong shade of pink.
Raven
And how many contractors have been killed in Iraq?
r€nato
So the problem is that she didn’t say ‘OMG TERRORISTS’ enough?
Funny how these are the same people who made a fetish of denouncing political correctness.
Rick Massimo
That’s been their perspective on everything for the past 30 years, up to and including the election three weeks ago.
Ironically, if you compare the run they’ve had in our politics with the number of voters who actually agree with anything they say, it’s clear that selling people on their program has actually been the only thing they do well.
red dog
Why can’t our State Department or other government people just learn to say “I don’t know” or “we do not have the facts yet”. It would be much easier to be honest than give in to the media’s furor. Let the assholes miss a deadline and learn their manners. The same goes for old nasty Senators.
r€nato
What was Troopergate about? Filegate? Vince Fostergate? Not one in ten 1990s-vintage wingnuts could have explained it to you, but their heroes in politics and the media were huffing and puffing about it, so surely it was a Bad Thing.
Same shit, different decade/president.
Bernard Finel
@Raven: As much as I liked Ricks taking a shot at Fox, I think the contractors line is a distraction. I mean, really what does one have to do with the other?
Thousand of Americans died in Iraq — soldiers, Marines, contractors. Tens of thousands (at least) of Iraqis died. Iraq was several orders of magnitude worse that Benghazi. But so what? Must foreign policy issues be as disastrous as Iraq before anyone is allowed to ask questions?
ShadeTail
Word choice is also their excuse for getting their collective ass handed to them this past November 6th. It’s not that their policies and beliefs are abhorrent to any decent person, it’s that they simply failed to explain them properly. If only they could find the magic word choice, that incantation will bring Black people, Latinos, and young women to vote for them in droves.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and “al qaeda”. I gather Joe Scarborough, like Kelly Ayotte entertaining fantasies about 2016, is trying to push the idea that this was an AQ attack. I’m sure I”m violating some Godwin corollary, but does it occur to anyone that trying to conflate a local militia with AQ is basically doing PR for AQ, making them sound big and powerful and more effective than they are? All so you can beat some sad, tiny drum about how Obama hasn’t done anything to fight terrorism? McCain isn’t just silly, he’s dangerously silly.
Baud
They need a controversy that will result in a loss to Obama. Attacking Rice may prevent her confirmation. Raising legitimate issues about security can only lead to better policy and more funding.
Short Bus Bully
The saddest thing of all with this whole clusterfuck? It will uproot itself completely from any tenuous connection it had with reality and live on forever at the top of the far right conspiracy list.
ZOMG BENGHAZI.
No one else will know or care what the fuck they’re talking about in their crazy little wingnut minds, but that will just make it all more real and meaningful in their AOL email chains.
the Conster
If the Villagers as represented on Morning Joe are any indication of the attitude towards these two pathetic drama queens, their sell-by date is up. No one seems to be able to articulate a coherent reason why this is a scandal, which means there isn’t any bad guy or a coherent motive.
r€nato
@Bernard Finel: I don’t understand why Ricks chose
contractorsmercenaries as his example, but I think his point was , “you fuckers sure didn’t give a shit about all the shit that went wrong in Iraq that got lots more Americans killed.”Ricks was in Iraq, covering the war when things went to shit there. It deeply affected him. And having watched a fair amount of FNC during that time I can tell you they sure did shove a lot of inconvenient news about Bush’s war under the rug.
Hill Dweller
The three cowardly stooges, McCain, Ayotte and Graham, are afraid to go after Clinton and/or Patraeus, so Rice is their scapegoat. I’m sure Rice being African-American is just a coincidence.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@the Conster: I heard some Villager on NPR saying that this is a controversy because Susan Rice was “strident” in her remarks. If we saw the same Susan Rice making the same remarks, one of us doesn’t know what that word means. Essentially, The McCain did not like that young lady’s tone, now The McCain must be appeased.
? Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Every time John McCain says Al Qaeda, a defense contractor gets a billion tax dollars.
That’s the way it is and always has been, and McCain and Graham have always played that role.
Tim C
I’m still not even getting what they are upset about. I’m not stupid, I’ve been able to comprehend most of the Republican fantasy conspiracy theories of the last 20 years. Black Helicopters and UN takeovers for example, I get the focus. It’s nutball and wrong of course, but I can at least follow the narrative. I got the whole Whitewater stuff. I understood and disagreed with the theory behind the impeachment of Bill Clinton. All the fantasies about Laffer curve economics, the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Social security privatization. Recently I’ve been able to understand the whole Birther movement, the apology tour mythology, reverend wright, death panels, all of it. I even see the internally coherent narrative to it all, even if it’s all obvious horse hockey to me. But this…. I just don’t get it. What exactly is the President supposed to be covering up? That a tragic attack took place and we aren’t 100% sure who did it? Or that we though the attackers were less organized than they really were at first? How the hell does the UN ambassador figure into this. Maybe it’s all a dog whistle that’s much much to high for me to hear, but it comes across like some kind of underwear gnome plan where there isn’t even any internal logic to it all.
Oh well…
Maude
@Bernard Finel:
What I find odd is that they are going after Susan Rice who is not nominated for anything and not Hillary Clinton.
This doesn’t even begin to come close to sanity.
r€nato
@Maude: Susan Rice is likely to be named as Hillary’s successor.
And – just guessing here – if they can succeed in making Benghazigate a scandal in the minds of Moron-Americans, it can certainly be used in 2016 to attack Hillary should she decide to run for prez.
YellowJournalism
Now he knows how I feel every single time I see him on TV.
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
What does “al-Qaeda” even mean anymore? Near as I can tell it’s like the Ku Klux Klan or MS-13 these days – a franchise more than an organization. There’s a whole nebula of AQ chapters worldwide, which share a worldview, a name and some contacts, but largely just do their own thing.
JPL
Susan Rice would be one of the most qualified nominees in the last decade and hopefully Obama nominates her. Lieberman even jumped ship from the whackos.
also, too. It was a CIA outpost and what I would like answered is why the Ambassador was there. It won’t be though.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
@Hill Dweller:
I’m actually glad that Rice’s remarks are the only thing on which they can manage to bring all of their great experience and influence to bear. A big deal for her and an annoyance to the White House, but way way off the chart of significant national issues.
They’re scrambling for a foot hold somewhere and it shows.
danielx
Huckleberry Closetcase strikes again. It would be amusing if it wasn’t so predictable.
ranchandsyrup
@Hill Dweller: I don’t think they’d go after Petraeus. If this is getting a scalp of a Clinton surrogate and/or prevent Rice from being Sec State, Johnny, Huck and Kelly may end up shining a brighter light on what the CIA and the contractors were up to over there.
KG
@red dog: normally, the rule is “best to remain silent and be thought a fool, then open your mouth and remove all doubt”… in Washington, that gets turned on its head – you are an incompetent fool if you don’t have talking points immediately, you are an incompetent fool if you stray from the talking points (regardless of new and/or better information), you are an incompetent fool if you don’t have a plan to solve the issue now, you are an incompetent fool if your plan fails (or isn’t sufficiently successful, or is modified so it can pass Congress).
In short, you are declared an incompetent fool if you approach politics the way any sane person would approach politics, i.e. in a thoughtful and prudent manner. Which is why the bombthrowers on both sides can’t stand Obama.
ETA: help! suck in moderation because I picked the wrong email and/or am on a new comp
the Conster
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Really? After the election just passed, everyone knows that the rules of the game have changed. Even the Morning Joe panel – it may have even been Joe – acknowledge the bad optics of these old white men picking on an easy target. Without a clear scandal, motive or bad guys, it’s uncomfortable for these white guys now to talk about it.
Linda Featheringill
@Hill Dweller: #13
If those guys are truly “disturbed” about the way things were handled, they should go after the trio of Obama-Clinton-Petraeus. Why they would go after the ambassador to the UN escapes me.
They don’t like what she said on the talk shows? She was acting as spox for the admin. They are trying to shoot the messenger. That doesn’t really make sense.
Ms. Rice being AA probably has some bearing on the situation. Maybe they think that black females are easy targets. Maybe they think that a black female would be an approved target in the eyes of their base. Still, I don’t see how being mean to her will be of benefit to them.
Ash Can
Not that I don’t agree that Republicans are shallow and petty regarding appearances and lingo, but I think this misses the mark. If it weren’t this wording, it would be some other wording, or something else that Rice did or didn’t do, because she’s the target, and through her the president, and not so much anything she said or did. WHAT she supposedly did wrong is secondary to THAT she did wrong, and for the attack-RIce/attack-Obama scheme to work at all, they need to be able to point to something she did wrong. That’s why this is all so ridiculous — she so obviously did nothing wrong, and these buffoons are so obviously desperate to find something to pin on her. I haven’t yet read the article to find out if any of them offer any actual reasons for being so disappointed by her answers, but I’m certainly not holding my breath.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I loved it when Joe Klein wiped the floor with Scar the other morning.
Scotty
My take away is that they’re just battling over semantics and being ass-hats . But with regards to semantics, when did every and any armed attack on a US government entity become terrorism?
different-church-lady
Well, good of him to admit it, at least.
Higgs Boson's Mate
A few years ago John Boehner called for re-branding the Republican party. No call for re-examining their policies or their practices though.
This is the Republicans once again going for framing over substance. It only works beause of all the help that it gets from our lazy media.
PeakVT
I really hope Reid and the Democrats ditch the filibuster, because I want to see Susan Rice nominated and confirmed as SoS. Yes, mostly for the wrong reasons, but I don’t care.
Cacti
@JPL:
It would also give Harry Reid convenient cover for pushing through filibuster reform.
Chris
@Hill Dweller:
Well, that and you can’t accuse Saint Petraeus of anything. He’s Saint Petraeus, for Pete’s sake.
bemused
What a trio of jackasses. They keep coming back on stage for encores even though the audience left before the end of the production.
the Conster
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I saw that, but Klein contradicted, sort of, what Petraeus said about al Qaeda, which Joe hammered on. Why it matters, no one can answer. Klein’s explanation was right about the makeup of the mob, but today Joe, of course, smeared him about being with the far left loons on Twitter who insist there’s no there there.
Mike G
I think it’s more “We’ll do what we damn well please, then snow-job all the stupid rubes with the right sales pitch.”
Everything is about marketing with these criminal assclowns; it never occurs to them that they should change the substance.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Maude:
Because Hillary would cut their balls off, and they fucking know it.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Tim C:
I think the gist of it is that we were attacked by AQ, that everybody from the President on down knew it was an AQ attack and they failed to do anything to prevent it, which would have proved to clear-eyed patriotic Americans that the President is weak, sympathizes with and coddles terrorists, is a coward, and drinks himself into a stupor every night from a seekrit stash of Billy Beer left over from the Carter Administration, etc., etc., all of which would have produced the Romney landslide in the election which Dick Morris was accurately forecasting..blah,blah..blah..etc.
Except that the dastardly bastards covered it all up. So the American people never got to learn the REAL TRUTH about the administration’s COWARDICE before the election. And so now the truth tellers on the Right are digging in on the idea that some sort of horrible coverup was used to rig the election, which makes this WORSE THAN WATERGATE ELEVENTY-ONE! WOLVERINES!
That’s about as close as I can come to speaking wingnut on this one. Hope that helps.
IowaOldLady
@Tim C: I agree. I’m not stupid and I follow politics and I have no idea what they’re claiming is scandalous. It comes down to what someone said on a Sunday show? Seriously?
These three are “disturbed” all right, as in a “disturbed” person. That is, not in touch with reality.
jl
@Hill Dweller:
Ha! Yes, I am sure Rice being African-American is just a coincidence.
Because I don’t follow the personalities in the administration that closely, I did not know she was black for quite awhile into the flap. When I saw her pic, suddenly, sadly, it all made sense.
So, I think the problem is not that the lipstick is not quite the right shade of pink. It is exactly the right shade of brown for desperate GOPers who need some attention from the GOP base, and corporate media stooges who will go with it, for their own personal or ratings reasons.
Felonius Monk
McCain farts, Huckleberry inhales. It will ever be so!
El Cid
If there had been a demonstration, then, all of our personnel would now be alive, because if there’s a spontaneous demonstration, it causes a magic force field which prevents the still-heavily-armed-post-overthrow insurgents from using heavy weapons to attack anyone.
And if an attack still happened, if there was a demonstration it would make everything much more acceptable for Republicans, who are known for their deep & abiding respect for foreign brown people and especially Muslims who protest at and against American facilities abroad.
What the GOP’s really furious about is that Rice and all these people got their hopes up about there being this awesome spontaneous demonstration that they all totally wanted to see, and hearing that it didn’t happen was like two complete Wars on Christmas times a million citations of evolution in schoolbooks.
Raven
@r€nato: Because three of the four dead were contractors.
Mike in NC
@Hill Dweller:
Fixed
Clearly the wingnuts have decided that Benghazi will finally be Obama’s Waterloo!
Maude
@Litlebritdifrnt:
No, that’s not it. There is something going on with this. The trio keeps talking about it to the media.
JPL
@Maude: and the media feeds it.
El Cid
The US’ Ambassador to the UN should have said “Fuck the CIA” and created her own crack investigation team to parachute into Benghazi and investigate what happened.
It’s always the responsibility of the US’ Ambassador to the UN to have the final call on US intelligence reports, right?
McCain could have flown the secret mission plane, except he doesn’t have the best record on landings.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
@IowaOldLady:
Worse. Early talking points that were later corrected in detail. Nobody objects to the current explanation of the attacks. Just that particular one from Rice on that day. They’ve found a molehill and by God they’ll build it up until their flag on top can be seen all across the land.
Olivia
Take him at his word. The man said he was more disturbed than before. He is definitely disturbed, everyone knows it and he admits that it is getting worse.
jl
And something else, HRC and Petraeus may have political ambitions and have quite a few supporters, or at least powerful fan boys and girls.
So, besides the race angle, going after Rice has no real risks in terms of pissing off ‘players’, or contributors, or bigshot money schmoozers.
They can be total a holes and take pot shots at Rice and there are no political or financial consequences for these cynical posers.
So, it is either cowardice or racism, or (of course we must not forget) both.
Mary G
I don’t think it’s just because she’s black necessarily. They did vote for Condi Rice, after all. It’s the “strident” tone = dog whistle for “uppity” thing that gets their goat. She probably didn’t do any groveling in today’s meeting and that is just not allowed.
Maude
@JPL:
Oh, yes indeed. Also, SoS Clinton didn’t go on the Sunday show and that’s why Dr. Rice was there.
jl
@Olivia:
‘More disturbed’ Graham is, is he? heavans to Betsy, he must be very sincerely thoroughly disturbed! I believe him. That is a very sincere pose to take, something that con men are good at. Unless you have an ulterior motive in the fight, as it were, a very transparent one too.
Probably what really disturbs McCain and Graham is, is that no one really gives much of damn what they say. Or that their PR stunts aren’t getting them what they want, whatever it is.
They may be able to kill Rice’s nomination, but I doubt they care much about that.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Maude:
Because they are weasely little fucks who are pushing this for their own political agenda and no other reason. They couldn’t disrupt the election with it and get Romney elected, so they are going to double down and attempt to smear the entire administration with it. McCain has never forgiven Obama for beating him, he is a bitter, twisted old man who is bringing his pal with him to smear POTUS. John McCain will do everything in his power to bring down the twice duly elected POTUS because he is pissed. It is that simple. Anyone who cannot see that is missing the point.
TheMightyTrowel
@Mary G: Also worth noting, she was a Rhodes Scholar in the early 80s, within 10 years of the scholarship opening to women at all. Rice is hot shit, incredibly intelligent and more successful than they could dream of being. She scares the pants off them.
Edited for accuracy and spelling
IowaOldLady
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist: Then it’s not going to fly except in their “disturbed” brains. The American public needs a clear through-line if they’re going to go for a scandal. Sex is good. Tapes from under your desk are good. This kind of crap is like Whitewater, vague and not something most people are going to pay attention to.
I find it weird to see Ayotte hanging out with these old guys. How can she stand it? Not that she’s proving herself to be a prize.
? Martin
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
There’s that. I suspect there’s also a fair bit of butthurt from the right that Libya has turned out as well as it has. They went after him for not going in, then for going in, then for going in the wrong way, and so on. Susan Rice was an important player in how Libya went – and that team of Obama/Clinton/Rice did it as well as could be expected by anyone.
The GOP and particularly McCain looked a bit like fools out of that whole endeavor.
Paul
Why weren’t these 3 clowns concerned when the GOP House cut the amount of embassy security requested by the Obama admin? Hell, using McCain’s dwarfed logic, we should have a Watergate like commission investigating why the funding was cut by the GOP House.
Why weren’t these clowns concerned about Condi Rice when she delivered wrong data regarding the Iraq war?
When is the media going to call them on it? This is beyond obvious.
General Stuck
Part of going off half cocked into a frothy pre election poutrage toward your opponent, is to let the air out slowly from the fail balloon. Saving face, as it were, and giving grim pressers of increasing doubt, then praying the fuck something else comes along that wipes the American memory clean in about twenty four hours. I figure the tax debate is fixing to do that, and MCcain can climb down slowly from his own petard without too many noticing.
SiubhanDuinne
@El Cid:
Do the kewl kidz still say “Oh, snap!”? Because, if so, Oh, snap!
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
@Paul:
Never. The media is their natural constituency. Particularly McCain (R-Green Room).
IowaOldLady
@General Stuck: General, you are a comfort to me.
Maude
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I understand all that, but I don’t see how this benefits McCain and the other two.
redshirt
I’ve added the word “Benghazi” to my list of code words which engage the automatic snark laser. If you seriously mention “Benghazi”, I know you’re a Fox drooling Wingnut, and I can not only dismiss everything you have to say, but furthermore, I will mock you relentlessly.
Thanks John! Country first!
Mandalay
@Tim C:
I think it is intensely personal between Rice and McCain. She has twice publicly ridiculed McCain as an incompetent trigger happy warmonger (over Iraq, and Russia’s attack on Georgia), and this is payback from McCain.
Nobody understands why McCain is making such a big deal of this because it doesn’t make any sense…until you take into account that Rice has held McCain in very low esteem in the past, and now he is seeking his revenge.
Paul
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist:
I haven’t watched the Sunday morning talk shows in years, partially because old, useless people like McCain keeps getting invited as guests.
I wonder if they ever realized that by putting new blood and new thinking their ratings may actually go up?
ranchandsyrup
@Paul: Soledad O’Brien did a pretty good job pushing the Condi/Susan differential treatment. http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/11/21/1226711/cnn-host-exposes-gops-hypocrisy-on-benghazi/?mobile=nc
KG
Hypothetically speaking, let’s say the GOP were to burn to embers on the ash heap of history… what, exactly, would take their place?
I mean, we know that there’s roughly 27% of the general population that won’t vote for Democrats, but what about the 23% or so that aren’t of the mindset that you-know-who had the right idea but didn’t do it right, or that the other guy got the trains to run on time, or that if we just followed the laws of a book written in the Bronze or Iron Age everything would be great?
Let’s say that the Greens become a viable liberal party, pull some percentage of liberal Democrats to their fold, as that 23% moves toward what is suddenly a centrist Democratic party. Is that even viable in the US? I mean, I can’t think of any time when we’ve had three functioning parties. Or does the GOP become a truly regional party? What happens to the rest of the country? There would have to be something to oppose the Democrats, I mean, other than themselves (which they do a decent job of anyway).
The reason I ask is because the more I see these jackasses engage in jackassery of this sort, the more convinced I am that it’s going to happen.
lumpkin
Not blaming Ambassador Rice here, but once again we have the administration sitting back on its heels getting sandbagged by cretins. And we all know that the dipshit parade we affectionately refer to as the MSM will continue to migrate toward the right wing perspective because they are moths drawn to lights and the right is shining the only light on this.
Obama should have just shut these assclowns down and refused to allow the Ambassador to meet with them, followed by a condemnation of their interference in foreign policy. A few mentions of endangering our foreign service people would have helped out to get the dopes in the press to think about another angle on this.
Will this administration ever learn how this game is played? Methinks not. Gonna be 4 more disappointing years.
ottercliff
Lindsey Graham is “upset” because John McCain says he is upset. And John McCain is upset because is an old man who got his butt kicked by Barack Obama in 2008 and hasn’t done anything of value since except go on TV and yell.
Triassic Sands
If anyone believed that recent “changes” in Republican attitudes toward “revenue” were a sign of the beginnings of a return to sanity for the GOP, this issue is a sure indication that they’re just as nuts as ever.
The capacity of Republicans to work themselves into a frenzy over issues of little or no importance (i.e., Rice’s role) is truly astounding. Yawn. I guess it just gives them another imaginary reason to oppose everything the Dems try to do.
redshirt
Has anyone in our awesome Media asked McCain or Huckleberry what specifically they’re “disturbed” about? I don’t watch the TV news – ever – so I would have missed it if so.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
@lumpkin:
This only exists as an issue because McCain, Ayotte & Huckleberry say it is. There’s no there there. The media abets them by playing the invented story because otherwise they’d have to go do journalism to fill up the airtime/column inches. The GOP has mastered playing to the MSM’s greatest weakness; laziness.
KG
@lumpkin: ever hear of political ju jitsu? Know what real ju jitsu is? Like akido, the idea is to take your opponent’s moment and energy and use it against them. It is very reactive and very reflective. If it’s done right, you don’t even see it happening until it’s too late (I’m talking about the real ju jitsu and the real akido). Obama is basically a fucking 10th degree black belt/master in this shit.
Jay B.
@red dog:
Why can’t our State Department or other government people just learn to say “I don’t know” or “we do not have the facts yet”. It would be much easier to be honest than give in to the media’s furor. Let the assholes miss a deadline and learn their manners. The same goes for old nasty Senators.
Because we had some basic grasp of the facts and, honestly, it is important for the government to tell the American people what is going on, to the best of their ability, about an important matter with international implications. Moreover, Rice provided plenty of caveats and “from what we know at this time” style disclaimers. What she said was both largely correct and fairly informative.
Which is why what the WaPo wrote is actually wrong:
That’s actually NOT true. The CIA still hasn’t determined the full sequence of events and it doesn’t even accurately describe what Rice said. She said that it appeared that what had initially started as a spontaneous demonstration, was taken over by an organized, armed group at some point — not that the demonstration had gotten out of hand, but that it was basically cover for another event happening, an action by an organized band of militia-types in Libya.
JWL
The GOP is nowadays less a political party than it is a cult.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
BTW, Tomasky says the objections to Rice are all a ploy to get John Kerry nominated so Scott Brown can have another shot at a Senate seat.
aimai
@KG:
I agree–the more posturing McCain and Huckleberry Closet case and Ayotte do about filibustering Rice the more likely it is that Reid is going to end up blowing up the Filibuster entirely, or definitively as regards to the “advise and consent” part of the confirmation process. I think there is a very, very, good chance that by the time Clinton steps down, in a new Senate, there won’t be any filibuster for them to use or any secret holds either. So go go go, Mcainiacs. Just keep fucking that chicken because chicken fucking is going to go out of style.
aimai
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jay B.: The last actual news articles I read, the difference between the NYT coverage and the WaPo coverage was striking: The NYT was much more grounded in facts and evidence and reports from the ground– such as no evidence of a long planned attack by people with no meaningful connection to Al Qaeda. The WaPo talking about an “attack that seemed to have been planned” (since that afternoon? for weeks beforehand?) by groups that some say may have ties to AQ.
JPL
If Ayotte thinks McCain and Graham are going to help her run for presidency, then maybe she might rethink her future plans.
1badbaba3
@lumpkin: Aren’t you just precious?
General Stuck
@IowaOldLady:
Awwe. Thanks :)
TheMightyTrowel
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist: this makes a distressing amount of sense.
GregB
Yes, the Republican’s know that talking tough prevents America from suffering any attacks while they are in office.
Which is why we didn’t sustain an attack on the US Embassy in Beirut in 1983, or the US barracks in Lebanon when Reagan was President.
Of the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie when Bush Sr. was President.
Or 9/11, DC snipers or the Anthrax attacks when George W. was President.
Now we have weak sister Obama and the terrorism is out of control I tell you.
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S.
This thing about reciting “incantations” is right on the mark. It’s the same thing they’ve been doing since they lost the election. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard some sleazebag riff on some variation of, “What we need to do is get the message across to voters that we care about ordinary people.” You might note what they don’t say, which is something along the lines of, “What we need to do is care about ordinary people.” They don’t understand that it isn’t enough to tell people you care about them if you don’t care about them.
This is something I’ve thought about for a while now. It’s the same thing with their hangup about “American exceptionalism”. They don’t care what we do as a country, we’re the awesomest, bestest most greatest country evvvvver! We can torture people, and that’s all right, because we aren’t the kind of country that tortures people. So even if we torture people, it doesn’t count, we’re still awesome, since we aren’t the kind of people who do things like that.
And their kind of “Christianity” is the same. As long as you say the right words, you can cheat, steal, fuck people over, anything you want! ‘Cause all you need to do is say the right thing. You don’t have to do the right thing.
It’s how children think. We have a five year old who sometimes dressed up as “Supergirl!” We ask sometimes what Supergirl! does, but she has no answer: Supergirl! doesn’t do anything. She just is Supergirl. Because all you have to do is call yourself Supergirl! and, hey, how about that, you are Supergirl!
These people really think that empty words mean more than the way you live your life.
Mandalay
@Ash Can:
They offered no specific concerns at all as far as I can tell, and certainly no direct criticism of Rice, though (surprise, surprise) that is not how the media is reporting it. Graham craftily said “I’m more disturbed now than I was before” without providing specifics, and the media just lapped it up.
This is all bluff by those three bozos. If they were truly serious they would be stating they will do all they can to block Rice.
Sound and fury, signifying nothing.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
@TheMightyTrowel:
The Three GOP-ers may just be bugnuts insane but I think we have to look for an ulterior motive. That said, I don’t think PBO would fall for it. He wouldn’t risk flipping a Senate seat.
JPL
@GregB: Since 9/11 we can’t ignore any attack.. just sayin
Baud
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist:
I though the latest scuttlebut was Kerry for Defense?
MattR
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist: Which is why I have seen Dick Lugar’s name thrown around as a possible alternative if Obama does not go with Rice.
Frankensteinbeck
‘Coverup’ was the narrative they came up with first. If they changed narratives to fit the facts, the current political situation would be very different.
hoodie
@Triassic Sands: I guess there is method to this madness, all of it maneuvering that has nothing to do with Benghazi or dead foreign service officers (for which they care next to nothing, as Ricks pointed out). Huckleberry is trying to look butch to pre-empt a primary challenge (look what’s already happening with Capito), and Ayotte is trying to gain national visibility because no one knows who the fuck she is outside of NH. McCain is Lindey’s asshole buddy and may simply be providing star power and/or is desperately seeking relevance. Maybe they’ve deluded themselves into thinking they’re steering the Republican brand back to national security after the Romney debacle, which defanged the GOP’s ability to attack on domestic economic policy. The filibuster reform may also have something to do with it, e.g., they’re making a big deal out of Rice so that it looks that there is some basis other than petty Senate posturing for putting her nomination on hold, which is why, God forbid, we can’t remove the power of a single asshole senator to render the Senate useless.
It’s so transparently nonsense that even FOX can’t really carry the ball on it. Seems kind of desperate given they haven’t been able to get traction with stuff like Fast and Furious or Solyndra. I imagine Obama playing along is an indication that he intends to move forward with Rice’s nomination and putting the coup de grace to McCain’s pathetic career and sending Huckleberry down to defeat at the hands of whatever teabagger runs against him in the SC primary when it’s revealed he doesn’t have the stones to take on Obama.
redshirt
As mentioned, if these ridiculous tirades persuade a few more Dems to rework the Senate rules, well, won’t Huckleberry be so disturbed then?
Joel
@Bernard Finel: Insofar as that calculation applies to Republicans, my answer is yes.
Anne Laurie
@Linda Featheringill:
The Repub and Repub-apologist talking point seems to be that “She’s no Condi, that’s for sure!” Their Rice knew her place, mostly as a gym-buddy/nanny for The Deciderer, and never spoke rudely to fine specimens of Senatorial Gravitas like McCain! Why, presenting this uppity woman as a fit replacement for someone with a firm grasp on Our Greatest Enemy Forever (Russia) is an insult to fossilized scholarship and American
imperialismexceptionalism!Grampa Walnuts and Senator Closetcase were in desperate need of a Vagina-American to spearhead this assault, and it’s a low-risk/high-reward scenario for Kelly Ayotte. Sure, the whole fooferaw is going nowhere on a clown car, but where else could a just-scraped-in newbie from a state that nobody will care about for the next four years get so much national tv attention? By the time Ayotte’s up for re-election, she’s got excellent clips to grift donations from the Loyal 27%, and for the (possible) sane majority of NH voters, she can say she was misled or even bullied by the big important dudes who took advantage of her innocence.
JPL
@MattR: If the President doesn’t nominate her, I will be so pissed. McCain and the assholes need to be stopped.
PeakVT
@KG: That could happen. The UK has had three major parties for a while under a system with similar election mechanics (first-past-the-post elections in single-member districts). But the overall system is parliamentary, so there is no single nationwide office to capture. The presidency a huge prize and the process of capturing it has big effects down-ticket. So in America there is a lot of pressure for small groups to form a coalition of some sort. The “party system” view of American history says that coalitions have indeed formed several times under the guise of the two main parties.
I think what is more likely than a dissolution of the Republican coalition is that at some point the money faction of the Republican Party will make its propaganda machine start feeding the base a new, more moderate message so Republicans can attract more minorities. Don’t know when that will happen, but it will have to happen. A large number of Democratic politicians can be easily bought on one issue or another, but that is not the same as having a whole party looking out for the interests of the wealthy.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
Joe Nocera thinks that if Obama can’t choose Rice as SOS he should pick the Big Dog himself. Ex-Pres Clinton would be a rather unconventional choice, and would certainly be a further insult to the GOP.
KS in MA
@Linda Featheringill: I’m thinking they’re trying to make Rice the next Van Jones. They had about the same amount of justification (= none) for going on a witch hunt for him, but the same kind of goal: get Obama to back down or otherwise look weak.
Mandalay
@Mandalay:
I was wrong; they are not bluffing…
One of the senators, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, said she would try to block the confirmation of Ms. Rice or another nominee to succeed departing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “My view is we should hold on this until we get sufficient information,” she said.
Either McCain or Obama is going to look very foolish when the dust settles, but I don’t think I would put any money on McCain winning,
Chris
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
To be very fair, to the point of “too broad-minded to take my own side in a quarrel” fair, isn’t that somewhat like what liberals did after the Nixon backlash? There was nothing wrong with our stances (the ones that had pissed off so many white people), we just needed to survive for long enough until white people had calmed the fuck down and their identity instinct no longer overrode their common sense? And in the meantime, mitigate the damage by running people like Carter and Clinton (which, no disrespect to either of them, but a big part of their success – initially, for Carter – came from the simple ability to package the Democratic message through a white Christian guy with a Southern accent).
PeakVT
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist: Dunno. Obama did pull in Napolitano during his first term, which immediately handed over a governor’s office to the Republicans. Going from 55 to 54 in the Senate wouldn’t kill the Democrats (whether or not they ditch or limit the filibuster).
I still don’t think it would be a good idea to nominate Kerry for something, though, unless they have identified a candidate that polls ahead of Brown.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Triassic Sands: They desperately need something to keep the rubes focused someplace else than on “revenue”, because on January 1st, all their bullshit about taxes is going to blow up in their faces due to a bill that they wrote.
And then Obama is going to ram a giant tax cutting bill for the middle class down their unwilling throats, no love for billionaires will be in that legislation, and dare them to say no.
Suffern ACE
@Mandalay: so basically we won’t have a Secretary of State until these three fuckwit press darlings are satisfied about Benghazi, if I’m reading that “another nominee” bullshit.
It’s kind of what I figured. My guess is that Obama will need to get through a few years without a sec of state, CIA director, treasury secretary or defense secretary. The senate will be changing its rules.
Mandalay
@Anne Laurie:
You could not be more wrong. No American politician has been more vilified in modern times than McCain was by the Deciderer.
http://www.bartcopnation.com/dc/dcboard.php?forum=8&topic_id=522&az=show_topic
Baud
@JPL:
If he doesn’t, it won’t be because of McCain & Co.
Chris
@Tim C:
The logic is that the President, after the Bin Laden raid, has been anxious to declare victory over al-Qaeda too early (you can read into that what you will… I certainly take him at his word that he’s not a Muslim, but it would be irresponsible not to speculate!) and was reluctant to label Benghazi a terrorist attack because it would interfere with his narrative that he beat al-Qaeda.
No, it doesn’t make any fucking sense.
No, there’s no sign that the President is, in fact, anxious to declare victory over al-Qaeda.
No, that narrative doesn’t click at all with the incessant, continued drone-bombing of al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
But I, like Susan Rice, don’t make the news, I just report it… and that’s the news I’ve been reading from Facebook wingnuts who care to attempt to talk semi-coherently about it.
More broadly, the general point is that Obama’s managed to restore public confidence in Democrats on foreign policy, and they’re desperate to turn foreign policy back into a weakness for our side. I think the “he’s too anxious to declare victory over al-Qaeda” narrative is one they’re pushing because if it took hold, it would attack his greatest moment, killing Bin Laden, by turning it from a great success into a moment of overconfidence.
(Unfortunately for them, that narrative doesn’t seem to be sticking with the public, which doesn’t completely share their faith that all you have to do is speculate about something on PJMedia to make it true).
Other things fit into it too, but most have already been mentioned. I agree especially with the guy who said they’re angry as hell that Libya’s turned out as well as it has so far (in stark contrast to the clusterfuck that was Iraq). Actually, I think a lot of them are really sorry that it wasn’t a mob action that killed the four at Benghazi; if it had been, they’d now be calling about “Obama’s Iraq” instead of “Obama’s Watergate.”
Mandalay
@Suffern ACE:
Ayotte can try to block the nomination, but that does not mean she will automatically succeed. Apart from McCain and Graham, I don’t know of any other Republicans who would support a blocking at this stage.
It is noteworthy that after the meeting neither Graham nor McCain had the balls to insist that they would block Rice’s nomination.
Two cowards, hiding behind Ayotte’s skirt.
Chris
@KG:
I think the worse that happens is that the GOP gets knocked down for a generation or two, and has to choose between permanent minority status (like in the thirties and forties) or letting a moderate wing take over (like in the fifties and sixties). Eventually, they manage to adapt to the new American landscape, and come back with a new and improved version of “Real Americans” as their base – the same way the GOP in the seventies and eighties made itself welcoming to Southerners, Catholics and even Jews to some extent.
Having watched the UMP’s slide to the right in France over the last five years, with an increasing flirtation with the far right Front National, I’m coming to the depressing opinion that there’s simply no way to defeat the 27% long term; there’ll always be a fringe of dedicated far right fanatics making life hard for the rest of us. The most you can do is knock them out of the game for a couple generations, but they’ll be back before too long.
grandpa john
@YellowJournalism: All one needs to know to explain Graham is that he is going to be primaried by the tea baggers in 2014, thus all the wingnut bullshit he is pulling off.
1badbaba3
Just another garden variety GOP fail in the Obama age. Cannot wait to see how badly it goes for them. Because it will end badly for them. It always does when they go up against Metrosexual Black Abe Lincoln.
Frankensteinbeck
@JPL:
Obama will nominate whoever he feels is the right person for the job, and give not one tiny fuck for McCain or Graham or FOX’s whining. He’s never given a fuck before, and he’s not going to start now. Hell, he may smile and pat them on the back as he does whatever he pleases, but make no mistake he will be laughing at them, not with them.
catclub
@Baud: I think a nomination, followed by a change in filibuster rules, followed by McCain’s head exploding, is the win-win-win scenario.
I think this is the (delayed and misguided now) attack that should have been made on Condaleeza Rice, who just happens to have been in a similar (although 9/11 was a gigantic fail by comparison) situation, and just happens to also be black and a woman.
Elizabelle
@hoodie:
Something I don’t understand about Lindsey Graham on this: yes, he is up for election in 2014; yes, he is going to get primaried from the right, and very possibly — actually, rather likely — lose the Republican primary.
It would seem his route to remaining in the Senate would be pulling a Lieberman — running as an independent, and caucusing with his beloved GOP.
So why is he pulling this character assassination crap on Susan Rice, which is not going to help him with South Carolina teatards (who hate his guts and don’t trust him) but will very likely make him poison to Democrats and independents who see him as better than Jim DeMint (true) and maybe along the mold of Charlie Crist or Chris Christie?
Graham might have been seen as the best they’re going to get from the Republican party in SC.
I just don’t understand it.
Although I’m hoping we end up with Senator-elect John Spratt or another Democrat, out of the rubble.
Anne Laurie
@Mandalay: No, I meant it was Condi Rice who never spoke rudely to McCain, not his presidential-primary opponent. Rudeness was, after all, Dubya’s sellng point to the 27%, just as Condi’s willingness to be a stooge for the neocons was hers. As many others have pointed out, Susan Rice has mocked McCain in public, and that mydearfella is Just! Not! Done!
Anne Laurie
@Elizabelle:
What I’ve been seeing is that the SC GOP leadership has names, dates, and possibly video of Graham’s not-very-secret sex life, and they’ve been using that to keep him very firmly in line. In any case, he’s burned enough bridges that even the Blue Dog Democrats don’t trust him, so the Lieberman Option really won’t work for him. As for bashing Rice, I think the reasoning is that being offensive to an African-American, a female politician, or a Democrat has always been a vote-winner in the “too small for a republic, too large for an insane asylum” state, so why not go full-metal ugly on someone who’s all three?
Mandalay
@Anne Laurie:
Ah, gotcha! My bad.
Villago Delenda Est
@r€nato:
Not funny at all. Perfectly predictable.
Projection. It’s what these foul fascist fucks do.
Amanda in the South Bay
@r€nato: And fucking Ricks was one of the biggest, most uncritical supporters of Petraeus and the Surge. His hands are bloody too.
Bobby Thomson
At least Pumpkinhead’s dead. He’d be all over this meaningless shit.
Steeplejack
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist, @TheMightyTrowel:
And which would be hilarious if the Democrats then got Barney Frank to come out of retirement and run (successfully) for the vacant Senate seat.
liberal
@Chris:
Agreed. These ignorant malicious assholes have been with us since the dawn of humanity.
lumpkin
@1badbaba3:
WOW! that’s like the totally nicest thing anyone ever said about me. Thanks for the affirmation. I wish I knew how to do emoticons. I’d give you a big ol’ smiley.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
I’m also completely baffled by the collective Republican insistence on making what Susan Rice SAID on a couple Sunday shows ( nevermind that deviating from the script she was given would have possibly been an ACTUAL breach of her professional duties) and what Obama said in the Rose Garden the hill to die on. Even during the infamous moment with Romney at the 2nd debate, I had no clue why making what amounts to a fucking press release
El Cid
Why the fuck would anyone give a shit whether or not there was said to be a demonstration before the attack?
Why?
What on God’s green Earth would it change?
Why is this portrayed as some critical event?
So, somebody says there was a demonstration before the attack, and then later says, no there wasn’t.
So fucking what?
This, this is the “scandal” which Old Man McFart and Foghorn Droopy and GOP Woman are furious about.
This.
This fucking non-item, this fucking pathetic excuse for a discrepancy, whether or not somebody thought or said or reported that one or more people did one or more things near the US consulate which may or may not have appeared to have been a protest, and then there was an attack.
Grown up reporters — including Chris Matthews — are for God knows what reason agreeing to pretend this is some crucial factoid in investigating what happened.
This would tell me nothing about the event. The presence or absence of a protest or a protest-like event in no way would clarify who attacked, how, to what purpose, and to what result.
Nothing.
The moment I heard this statement and then the correction I accurately diagnosed it as irrelevant to any meaningful story.
But, no, no, Tea Party McPatriot and his trusty shitkicks finally found a molehill to scream at as Everest.
mai naem
I’ll admit I haven’t follow all the little minutiae but I don’t understand this whole Benghazi hubbub. First, could it not have been a combination of a protest and a terrorist attack – would’t terrorists have been looking for an opportunity. Second, I thought they already said that they didn’t want to tip off the extremists that the US was already onto them. Thirdly, haven’t they said it is not Al Qaeda, that it’s actually some extremist group. Lastly didn’t Petraeus and his mistress say they thought it was because the CIA was doing operations in Benghazi.
Rick Massimo
Can we cut to the chase? They’re big drama queens who have to be on TV complaining about something because that’s all they have ever known how to do. And specifically to this case:
1) They just got their clocks cleaned in the election;
2) They have to have the Villagers talking about something other than how the GOP got said clocks cleaned in the election and how they’re going to change their deeply unpopular message;
3) They have to construct a flimsy veil of “questions” and “concerns” (notice they can’t even make a full sentence out of what those questions and concerns even are anymore) so that they can filibuster Rice’s nomination;
4) Which they must do because they are desperate for the Villagers to talk about how Obama Was Defeated On Capitol Hill Today, because see #1 and #2.
Lymie
@IowaOldLady: Exactly. I feel that they are using her to imply they are not misogynists, but I can not see any upside for her! Maybe she really isn’t that smart. I hope we can replace her in 2016.
Full Metal Wingnut
Whatever the half wits Graham and McCain say I’m inclined to automatically disbelieve.