Matt Cover, CNS News, November 16, 012

Several House Democrats on Friday attacked Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) as a racist, a sexist, and said that his criticism of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice amounted to mugging and battering.

“There is a clear, a clear in my opinion, sexism and racism that goes with these comments that are being made by–unfortunately–Senator McCain and others,” Congressional Black Caucus chairwoman Rep. Marsha Fudge (D-Ohio.) said in a press conference Friday on Capitol Hill.

“And I strongly stand by that statement.”

Fudge said that Republican critics of Rice including McCain had never called a man “unqualified” or “not bright”, referring to comments he made on CBS’ This Morning program Thursday.

“All of the things that they have disliked about things that have gone on in this administration they have never called a male unqualified, not bright, not trustworthy. I don’t recall it ever happening,” Fudge said.

During the same press conference, Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) said that McCain and other “men” should not be allowed to “attack” or “batter this woman” Rice.

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Ambassador Rice is reportedly on the short list to be nominated to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton as Secretary of State, and on Wednesday, McCain said that he “will do everything in my power to block her (Rice) from being the United States secretary of state.”

Rice stirred up controversy when she told a series of Sunday talk shows on Sept. 16 that the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, five days earlier had been a “spontaneous reaction” to an online video clip denigrating the Prophet Mohammed.

U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the attack, which was subsequently dubbed a terrorist attack.

McCain told Fox News: “Susan Rice should have known better and if she didn’t know better, she is not qualified. She should have known better.”

Referring to Rice on “CBS This Morning,” McCain said the ambassador was, at the least, 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.”

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