Obama names Susan Rice National Security adviser

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Rice withdraw from secretary of state consideration

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MSNBC Host On Susan Rice Withdrawal: ‘A Woman Of Color Has Been Forced Out’

By Hamed Aleaziz/Think Progress

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell said this afternoon that Susan Rice’s withdrawal as a candidate for Secretary of State will not “help Republicans at all” because members of the party “forced out” a woman of color “before she was nominated.” For months now, Republicans, in an effort spearheaded by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), have relentlessly pursued blocking Rice’s chances for a Secretary of State nomination. Mitchell explained her perspective on MSNBC earlier today:

MITCHELL: I think that this had become sort of an impossible challenge for her to be confirmed, that she realized that, the White House realized it as well. I think they know that they are on good political solid ground, as you were just pointing out. This is not going to help Republicans at all, the fact that a woman and a woman of color has been forced out of a confirmation process even before she was nominated.

Here’s the video:

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Fellow MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski similarly criticized the GOP last month for what “looks like a bunch of old white men running women out of Washington,” as Brzezinski said. “Do the Republicans really think this is going to help their brand?” Scarboroughwondered, referring to the GOP’s campaign against Rice, adding:

“This is the first big fight following an election where Republicans got routed not just among African-Americans but among hispanics, among Asian-Americans. I really wonder do a bunch of old white guys…want to make their first big battle, post election, a battle going up against a younger woman of color?”

Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) said in November that the use of racial “code words” was rampant in the GOP’s attacks on Rice.

Susan Rice And How The Press Keeps Ignoring Republican Obstructionism

ERIC BOEHLERT/Media Matters for America

Once again, the press is turning a blind eye to the unprecedented obstructionism coming from the Republican Party.

In the wake of Ambassador Susan Rice's Capitol Hill meetings with Republican senators this week and the harsh assessment they quickly gave reporters, most new accounts stressed that if Rice were nominated to be secretary of state she would face stiff opposition. Reporters detailed how Republicans were raising objections to Rice's involvement in the controversy surrounding the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi after she was selected to appear on Sunday talk shows to relay the intelligence community's assessment of the attack. (An assessment that was later changed.)

Here's the key fact most press accounts omitted: The GOP continues to engage in unrivaled obstructionism. And its threat to vote down Rice as secretary of state before she's even named likely represents an unparalleled act of partisan defiance.

The extremist maneuver erases decades, if not centuries, of Capitol Hill protocol with regards to allowing a newly elected president to confirm the secretary of state of his choosing. The aggressive GOP attempt to derail Rice's rise also runs counter to how Democrats confirmed Condoleeza Rice as secretary of state, despite outstanding questions about her involvement in selling and planning the Iraq War.

Even more shocking with regards to Susan Rice was the threat this week from Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) that she would try to block any secretary of state nominee, whether it's Rice or someone else, unless the White House provides more answers about Benghazi. (The White House has been providing Benghazi answers for 10 weeks now.)

Ayotte's stunning threat is, without question, the definition of (militant) obstructionism :

One who systematically blocks or interrupts a process, especially one who attempts to impede passage of legislation by the use of delaying tactics, such as a filibuster.

Ayotte's scorched-earth tactic was treated by the Beltway press as nothing more than routine political posturing. Virtually no information was provided cluing news consumers into just how radical and extraordinary a proposal the Republican was making, or just how remarkable it was for senators to mount a campaign to block a secretary of state nomination.

Note that in these news reports from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and Washington Post, all of the crucial context was missing. And it's routinely missing from the ongoing Rice coverage.

The coordinated, partisan campaign to attack and derail Rice's possible nomination is highly, highly unusual regarding a secretary of state. But you would never know it from watching and reading the press coverage, which depicts the battle as simply more political jockeying and part of a long-running partisan feud where both sides are to blame.

It's not. And the press ought to say so.

Fact: For decades, secretaries of state were confirmed by the U.S. Senate unanimously, as senators acknowledged the president's prerogative in selecting one of the country's most important cabinet posts. There existed a longtime acknowledgement that partisanship was supposed to end "at the water's edge" and that the United States' envoy to the world should have the backing of both parties.

In 1981, when Al Haig was confirmed to be Ronald Reagan's secretary of state and received six no votes that was considered unusual and newsworthy. When Condoleeza Rice was confirmed in 2005 with 13 no votes, she collected the most dissenting votes for any secretary of state in 180 years. 

At the time, Fox News' Charles Krauthhamer noted that historic fact [emphasis added]:  

In this country, it is customary to allow the president to choose his own Cabinet so long as the nominee is minimally qualified.

...

Indeed, secretaries of state are generally approved unanimously. This is the first nomination in a quarter-century to have earned even a single dissenting vote.

Note that in 2005, Krauthammer thought it was imprudent for any Democrat to vote against Rice's nomination. (Sean Hannity decried the Democrats' "shrillness" on the topic.) With Republicans now threatening to indefinitely block Susan Rice's possible nomination by placing a hold on her would-be bid, and with Fox News talkers (including Krauthammer) leading an endless barrage of attacks against Rice, placing her at the center of an alleged cover-up, the conservative script on secretaries of state has certainly flipped. 

It's true that twelve Democrats and one Independent voted against Condoleeza Rice, based on her role in selling the public on the need for war with Iraq. (i.e. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.")  But at no time was there a concerted campaign to actually block her nomination. Democrats made it clear early on in the process that Rice would be confirmed. And that's how the story was covered.

On Nov 17, 2004, when the Washington Post reported on President Bush's selection of Rice, the article didn't even bother quoting Democrats to gage the party's reaction. The premise of the article was straightforward: Rice will be the next secretary of state because the president wants her to be.

And that's how the process has mostly worked throughout American history. That's certainly how it's worked in modern American history.

Today though, in a radical bout of obstructionism, Republicans are vowing to vote down Rice and vowing to possibly block any secretary of state nomination put forward by President Obama.

And the press is giving Republicans a pass. Just as they've done throughout Obama's presidency, pundits and reporters are careful not to spell out the historic, extremist tactics being adopted by Obama's opponents; the same opponents who have voted en masse against his initiatives for four years in an unrivaled display of legislative partisanship.

GOP’s Benghazi Conspiracy Falls Apart: White House Didn’t Change Susan Rice’s Talking Points

By Hamed Aleaziz/Think Progress

Intelligence officials told CNN that the intelligence community, not the White House, changed the now infamous Benghazi talking points given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice before her appearance on several morning news shows in September. CNN quoted both the spokesperson for the Director of National Intelligence and an anonymous official “familiar with the drafting of the talking points.” The DNI spokesperson said that the only “substantive changes” came from the intelligence community and not the White House.

Former CIA Director David Petraeus told lawmakers in a closed door hearing last week that the CIA’s original assessment on the Sept. 11 Benghazi attack was that it was carried out by al Qaeda affiliated groups. But he reportedly said that analysis was later taken out after an interagency review in favor of a more general assessment that “extremists” carried out the attack to broaden the scope and not tip off terrorists to U.S. knowledge on the matter. And despite the fact that Petraeus said the CIA approved the change, Republicans, led by Republican senators John McCain (AZ), Lindsey Graham (SC) and Kelly Ayotte (NH), have accused the White House of stripping the language for political reasons.

But Shawn Turner, the spokesman for the Director of National Intelligence, told CNN that it wasn’t the White House’s decision:

“The intelligence community made substantive, analytical changes before the talking points were sent to government agency partners for their feedback.There were no substantive changes made to the talking points after they left the intelligence community.”

Another anonymous intelligence official echoed Turner, saying that the changes were made based on legitimate intelligence and for legal purposes:

“First, the information about individuals linked to al Qaeda was derived from classified sources. Second, when links were so tenuous – as they still are – itmakes sense to be cautious before pointing fingers so you don’t set off a chain of circular and self-reinforcing assumptions. Third, it is important to be careful not to prejudice a criminal investigation in its early stages.”

Indeed, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told the New York Times last week that in his closed door briefing, Petraeus “was adamant there was no politicization of the process, no White House interference or political agenda.”

The fight over the talking points will most likely continue; it has even become a campaign cause for Republican senators like Lindsey Graham. Others like John McCain have vowed to do “everything” to block the potential nomination of Susan Rice for Secretary of State. But Democrats in Congress and media commentators are beginning to wonder why Republicans are picking a substance-free fight with Rice, a woman and an African-American, after the drubbing they took in last month’s elections among those demographics.

GOP Rep Admits CIA Approved U.N. Ambassador’s Talking Points On Libya

By Hayes Brown/Think Progress

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) has admitted that the CIA and intelligence community approved U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice’s talking points before she made her much-derided Sept. 16 appearance on several Sunday news shows to discuss the attacks in Benghazi. King, one of the most outspoken critics of the Obama administration’s response to the attack, came to his conclusion following testimony from former CIA Director David Petraeus.

After leaving the closed-door hearing, King spoke with reporters for several minutes about Petraeus’ statements. Rice’s television appearances were among the topics discussed, leading King to indicate that while Petraeus did not personally write Rice’s talking points, the CIA did approve them:

Q: Did he say why it was taken out of the talking points that [the attack] was Al Qaeda affiliated?

KING: He didn’t know.

Q: He didn’t know? What do you mean he didn’t know?

KING: They were not involved — it was done, the process was completed and they said, “Ok go with those talking points.” Again it’s interagency — I got the impression that 7, 8, 9 different agencies.

Q: Did he give you the impression that he was upset it was taken out?

KING: No.

Q: You said the CIA said “OK” to the revised report –

KING: No, well, they said in that, after it goes through the process, they OK’d it to go. Yeah, they said “Okay for it to go.”

Watch King’s statements here:

Rice has been hit by Republicans for weeks for indicating that the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi stemmed from a spontaneous protest related to an anti-Islamic video. However, as Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) has pointed out, the talking points used by Rice were the same unclassified points given to both the administration and Congress by the intelligence community.

Contrary to the current GOP narrative, Petraeus’ testimony made clear that various intelligence sources at of the time of his initial briefing to Congress indicated that a protest arising in response to a similar one in Cairo was the impetus for the attack in Libya. While those initial assessments were later disproved, the Wall Street Journal has previously reported that this change in thinking began too late to alter Rice’s talking points.

Today’s comments by King towards the intelligence community’s assessments also mark a sharp departure from his previous accusations that Rice should have known sooner that the intelligence that was presented to her was incorrect. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have both also recently said that Rice should “have known better” than to make the statements she did during her interviews.

John McCain Supported Condi Rice After Massive Intelligence Failure

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

President Obama has yet to nominate anyone to succeed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, but Republicans are already lining up in opposition to potential replacement U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, citing her complicity in the administration’s alleged failures in responding to the attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

On Wednesday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) promised to filibuster Rice’s nomination and “do whatever to block the nomination that is within our power.” “She’s not qualified,” McCain explained, arguing that she misled the public by initially attributing the September 11 Benghazi attack to protests over an anti-Islam video. He claimed that at a minimum, Rice is guilty of “not being very bright, because it was obvious that this was not a ‘flash mob’ and there was additional information by the time she went on every news show…in America.”

But interestingly, McCain took a far different approach to another Rice in 2005. When President George W. Bush nominated National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to the post, McCain defended the nomination, despite Rice’s central role in spreading the false intelligence that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. The Democrats held hours of hearing and ultimately confirmed Rice, but not before McCain accused the opposition of using politics to delay her confirmation and challenging her “integrity”:

McCAIN: Condoleezza Rice is a great American success story. This is what America is all about. A young woman who grew up in a segregated part of America where Americans were not treated equally, to rise to the position of secretary of state. We should have been celebrating, I believe, this remarkable American success story.

Also, I thought that some of the remarks — and I’m not going to mention my 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, some lingering bitterness over a very tough campaign. I hope it dissipates soon.

“I can only conclude we’re doing this for no other reason than because of lingering bitterness at the outcome of the elections,” McCain told CBS Morning News on January 27, 2005.

Seven years later, there is no evidence that Susan Rice mislead the public, yet McCain is leading the charge to oppose her. Rice was “speaking from a set of talking points provided by the U.S. intelligence community, which was also provided to Congress. The video has also been cited by those on the ground as being an impetus for the attack in recent weeks, challenging the Republican narrative.”

During a press conference on Wednesday, Obama defended Rice, saying that the has “done exemplary work.” Rice “gave her best understanding of the intelligence that had been provided to her,” he said, adding that for McCain “to go after the U.N. ambassador who had nothing to do with Benghazi, who was giving a presentation based on the intelligence she had received…is outrageous.”

UPDATE

BuzzFeed’s Zeke Miller notes that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-NC), who is also opposing Susan Rice, backed Condoleezza. “[E]very intelligence agency in the world was misled. And to connect those two to say that she’s a liar is very unfair, over the line.”

CIA documents supported Susan Rice’s description of Benghazi attacks

By David Ignatius/The Washington Post

The Romney campaign may have misfired with its suggestion that statements by President Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice about the Benghazi attack last month weren’t supported by intelligence, according to documents provided by a senior U.S. intelligence official.

“Talking points” prepared by the CIA on Sept. 15, the same day that Rice taped three television appearances, support her description of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate as a reaction to Arab anger about an anti-Muslim video prepared in the United States. According to the CIA account, “The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.”

The CIA document went on: “This assessment may change as additional information is collected and analyzed and as currently available information continues to be evaluated.” This may sound like self-protective boilerplate, but it reflects the analysts’ genuine problem interpreting fragments of intercepted conversation, video surveillance and source reports.

The senior intelligence official said the analysts’ judgment was based in part on monitoring of some of the Benghazi attackers, which showed they had been watching the Cairo protests live on television and talking about them before they assaulted the consulate.

“We believe the timing of the attack was influenced by events in Cairo,” the senior official said, reaffirming the Cairo-Benghazi link. He said that judgment is repeated in a new report prepared this week for the House intelligence committee.

Here’s how the senior official described the jumble of events in Benghazi that day: “The attackers were disorganized; some seemed more interested in looting. Some who claimed to have participated joined the attack as it began or after it was under way. There is no evidence of rehearsals, they never got into the safe room . . . never took any hostages, didn’t bring explosives to blow the safe room door, and didn’t use a car bomb to blow the gates.”

The Benghazi flap is the sort of situation that intelligence officers dread: when politicians are demanding hard “yes” or “no” answers but evidence is fragmentary and conflicting. The political debate has focused on whether the attack was spontaneous or planned, but the official said there’s evidence of both, and that different attackers may have had different motives. There’s no dispute, however, that it was “an act of terror,” as Obama described it the next day.

“It was a flash mob with weapons,” is how the senior official described the attackers. The mob included members of the Ansar al-Sharia militia, about four members of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, and members of the Egypt-based Muhammad Jamal network, along with other unarmed looters.

The official said the only major change he would make now in the CIA’s Sept. 15 talking points would be to drop the word “spontaneous” and substitute “opportunistic.” He explained that there apparently was “some pre-coordination but minimal planning.”

The intelligence community obviously feels burned by having its tentative assessments become a political football in this campaign and, in truth, one obvious lesson is that the United States could use much better real-time intelligence from places such as Libya.

The Benghazi attack produced a swirl of intelligence reporting, some of it contradictory. The Associated Press reported Friday that within 24 hours of the assault, the CIA station chief in Libya cabled headquarters that eyewitnesses said the attack had been carried out by militants. But the analysts evidently didn’t feel that they had any single report that allowed them to make a definitive determination about the nature of the attack.

A memo prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center on Sept. 14 illustrates the fragmentary nature of the evidence: “As time progresses, we are learning more, but we still don’t have a complete picture of what happened,” noted the analysts. “At this point, we are not aware of any actionable intelligence that this attack was planned or imminent. . . .We are very cautious about drawing any firm conclusions at this point with regard to identification and motivation of the attackers.”

The analysts seem confident that al-Qaeda’s new leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, played no direct role in the Benghazi events, even though he called on Sept. 10 for revenge attacks against the United States. “He’s not a manager, he’s not a planner, he’s not an operator. He’s a theologian, and that doesn’t have much resonance now. He’s almost irrelevant, he’s so concerned about his security, so hunkered down,” said the senior official.

Ironically, the Sept. 15 talking points that were the basis for Rice’s televised comments were requested by the House intelligence committee. Ideally, the congressional oversight committees would provide bipartisan support for intelligence officials who are probing the attack. But in the heat of the final pre-election weeks, the murky details of what happened in Libya have instead become political assault weapons.