The continuing controversy over UN Ambassador Susan Rice and her statements on Sunday talk shows about the events in Benghazi, Libya, which led to the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others on September 11, has been blown so out of proportion that it borders on the ridiculous at this point!
A Fox News Channel and Mitt Romney inspired incident, it has led Senator John McCain to look like a total fool; Senator Lindsey Graham to look as if he is seeking for an issue to hold off Tea Party opposition to his reelection in South Carolina in 2014; and Senator Kelly Ayotte to come across as a freshman woman Senator who is hitching on the issue to make herself noticed, but in an embarrassing way that will trivialize her hope to become a national figure, after she was passed over by Mitt Romney to be his running mate for Vice President. Meanwhile, Senator Joe Lieberman, usually part of the “gang of three”, but now retiring, has decided NOT to join this cry for Rice’s head, showing some real intelligence as he leaves the Senate, but with Ayotte replacing him, to her degradation!
For anyone to be held so accountable for what he or she says on Sunday talk shows as Susan Rice is being held, is totally off the wall, and by that standard, Dick Cheney would have been impeached and removed from the Vice Presidency; Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell would have been drummed out of office, or in the case of Rice, denied the chance to be Secretary of State; and McCain and Graham themselves would be forced out of the Senate for past incorrect, inaccurate, or stupid comments!
Susan Rice is perfectly qualified to be Secretary of State, and instead has been pilloried in a manner unbecoming her distinction, her education and academic accomplishments, and her distinguished public career. Her education and brilliance, when compared to the measly such accomplishments of McCain, Graham, and Ayotte, makes them all look more like the jealous competitors for academic excellence who decide to downgrade their successful competitor by spreading innuendo, rumors, character assassination, and ridicule, because they have nothing else to offer.
All three Senators should apologize profusely to Susan Rice, stop their bull “feathers”, and get down to serious business serving their constituents, and stop seeking the limelight. And if Kelly Ayotte, the only one with serious long term potential, wishes to be seen seriously, she had better abandon these two Senators past their prime, and stake out her own identity, or become totally irrelevant, and a “joke” in Senate circles!