Our view: GOP pre-emptive attack on Susan Rice misfires

USATODAY

Fresh off an election in which they lost the presidential race and seats in both chambers of Congress, Republicans are already busy trying to torpedo a nomination that hasn't even been made.

Last week, Republican senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona vowed to block confirmation of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, if she is tapped to succeed Hillary Clinton as secretary of State. Not to be outdone, nearly 100 House Republicans, led by Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, signed a letter charging that a Rice nomination would undermine U.S. credibility abroad.

Their complaint? Misleading comments Rice made 10 weeks ago on Sunday talk shows about the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Working from talking points put together by intelligence officials and later edited by others, Rice peddled the story that the attack sprang from a spontaneous protest, spurred by an anti-Muslim video produced by an American.

That account turned out to be wrong, but it's hardly a reason to block Rice's potential nomination. After all, if misleading comments based on flawed intelligence were disqualifying, Colin Powell would have been forced to resign as George W. Bush's secretary of State and Condoleezza Rice never would have succeeded Powell. Powell's powerful speech before the United Nations in 2003, proclaiming proof of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, helped push the United States into a misguided war. Condoleezza Rice also touted the story line about Iraq's supposed nuclear program, warning on CNN that "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." No such weapons were found.

Susan Rice's comments about events in Benghazi are at best a sideshow. Instead of obsessing about what she said on TV after the tragedy, lawmakers ought to be more concerned about finding out what went wrong and preventing a repeat. Why weren't security warnings heeded and requests for more protection granted? As U.N. ambassador, Rice most likely had zero involvement with those decisions.

If President Obama does nominate Rice to be secretary of State, his choice deserves wide latitude, and the focus of the Senate confirmation process properly belongs on her experience and temperament. On both, there's plenty to consider.

Rice has had a long career in foreign policy, starting in 1993 as a staffer on the Clinton administration's National Security Council and rising quickly. In 2009, she became Obama's U.N. ambassador. In 2011, she lobbied successfully to push NATO to intervene in the civil war in Libya.

The rap against Rice is a blunt style and sometimes a foul mouth. While the nation's top diplomat must be tough, he or she must be able to charm as well as bully.

Rice's defenders are running a little hot, too. Rice is African-American, and Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., accused Rice's critics of using racist "code words" against her. Going after a black woman certainly seems tone deaf for Republicans, after their dismal support from women and minorities in the election. But there's no evidence of racism, and Rice's defenders ought to be more careful before hurling this toxic charge.

On Sunday, McCain softened his line a bit, telling Fox News Sunday that Rice deserves the opportunity "to explain her position."

She surely does. And if her Republican critics truly think she's unfit to be the nation's top diplomat, publicly daring the president to nominate her is a strategy likely to backfire.