Rice-- victim of extreme hyperpartisanship

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She was mugged
New York Daily News, December 15, 2012

Victim of Washington’s extreme hyperpartisanship, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice asked President Obama to stop considering her as a successor to Secretary of State Clinton.

Republican senators, notably John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, stood against Rice based on her preelection role in describing the attack on the U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, that took four American lives.

On five TV programs, she characterized the assault as rooted in a spontaneous demonstration that turned violent rather than as the terrorist attack it turned out to be. She said she presented information given to her by intelligence agencies.

McCain and Graham saw Rice as engaging in a nefarious, politically motivated attempt to conceal the true nature of the event as Election Day approached. Far-fetched as their conspiratorial thinking is, they are entitled to it. But preemptively scuttling a potential cabinet appointment because of these single-issue wisps was simply wrong.

Rice has had a distinguished career. She and Obama should have been able to expect the Senate would give her full record due consideration if the President nominated her.

Instead, anticipating that confirmation hearings would be brutally contentious, she pulled out rather than waste everyone’s time and the President’s political capital.

Chalk up a victory for the destructive zealotry that passes for governing today.

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