Former top Newsweek journalist and current MSNBC.com editor Richard Wolffe on Monday smeared Senator John McCain as a racist. According to Wolffe, there's no legitimate reason for the Republican to oppose Susan Rice's confirmation for Secretary of State.

Appearing on MSNBC's "Hardball," the journalist sneered that it was "outrageous" the way McCain was acting, raging against "this witch hunt going on the right about these people of color, let's face it, around this president. Eric Holder, Valerie Jarrett, now Susan Rice."

Such a charge seemed to shock even Chris Matthews. He sputtered, "McCain, who had his own daughter attacked, was accused of having an illegitimate child when, in fact, he adopted a young girl from South Asia. You're saying that McCain's being driven by racial prejudice here?"

Wolffe confirmed, "There is no other way to look at this..."

Of course, the real reason McCain opposes Rice's nomination is because of her dissembling on the Benghazi terror attack. “Four Americans died; they didn’t have to die, and for someone to go out and convey something that is absolutely false to all America — in my view, they bear responsibility,” said McCain on NBC’s “Today,” according to The Hill.

And it’s not just McCain criticizing Rice. Even Washington Post liberal columnist Dana Milbank, no friend of McCain, agreed. “McCain, even if wrong on the particulars, is right about Rice,” he wrote. He called Rice’s sticking to prepared talking points “revealing.” She did that, he continued, “even though they had been contradicted by the president of the Libyan National Assembly, who, on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’ just before Rice, said there was ‘no doubt’ that the attack on Americans in Benghazi ‘was preplanned.’ Rice rebutted the Libyan official, arguing — falsely, it turned out — that there was no evidence of such planning.”

Yet, Wolffe hinted, "What is it about Susan Rice? And the answer is there aren't any good foreign policy explanations for [opposition]."

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

RICHARD WOLFFE, MSNBC: I think it's Susan Rice. There is the question about John Kerry. But I think now that John McCain has sunk his teeth in, he's made it about presidential authority, and, frankly, it's outrageous that there is this witch hunt going on the right about these people of color, let's face it, around this president. Eric Holder, Valerie Jarrett, now Susan Rice. Before it was Van Jones. This is not about who is hawkish in the same way John McCain is about foreign policy because if you look at Iran and Libya, Susan Rice checks those boxes. This is a personal vendetta. It's about presidential authority.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, ANCHOR: So, you think McCain is being-- McCain and people like Lindsey Graham, McCain, who had his own daughter attacked, was accused of having an illegitimate child when, in fact, he adopted a young girl from South Asia. You're saying that McCain's being driven by racial prejudice here?

WOLFFE: There is no other way to look at this because look at her foreign policy and by the way, Look at what John McCain said about Condi Rice's nomination. We're running this story on the front page of the MSNBC website right now. Back then– four years-- eight years ago, John McCain said the people -- the Democrats who were questioning Condi Rice's credentials they were engaged with bitter innocence, they needed to move on. Why has he changed his tune? What is it about Susan Rice? And the answer is there aren't any good foreign policy explanations for it.

The preceding piece originally appeared on the Media Research Center's blog NewsBusters.org. For more from NewsBusters, click here.