I was intrigued by this argument over at Foreign Policy, saying that there are big problems in Susan Rice’s record, and they have nothing to do with Benghazi:
GOMA, Democratic Republic of the Congo — Televised comments made by Amb. Susan Rice shortly after the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi have dominated the debate over her probable nomination for secretary of state. This is a bit surprising, since it’s clear that she played only a marginal role in the affair and appears to have just been reading from the briefing notes provided. It’s also unfortunate that the “scandal” has crowded out a healthy discussion of her two-decade record as U.S. diplomat and policymaker prior to Sept. 2012 — and drawn attention away from actions for which she bears far greater responsibility than Benghazi.
Her role in shaping U.S. policy toward Central Africa should feature high on this list. Between 1993 and 2001, she helped form U.S. responses to the Rwandan genocide, events in post-genocide Rwanda, mass violence in Burundi, and two ruinous wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
She did not get off to an auspicious start. During her first year in government, there was a vigorous debate within the Clinton administration over whether to describe the killing in Rwanda as a “genocide,” a designation that would necessitate an international response under the 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention. In a now infamous incident from that April, which was reported in her now State Department colleague Samantha Power’s book, A Problem from Hell,Rice — at the time still a junior official at the National Security Council — stunned her colleagues by asking during a meeting, “If we use the word ‘genocide’ and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November [congressional midterm] election?” She later regretted this language,telling Power, “I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required.” And she has indeed emerged as one of the more forceful advocates for humanitarian intervention in U.S. foreign policy. Unfortunately, she has also often seemed to overcompensate for her earlier misstep on Rwanda with an uncritical embrace of the the country’s new leaders…
I didn’t realize any of that. Nor did I know about this:
Perhaps the most damning anecdote — told by French academic Gérard Prunier and confirmed by New York Times journalist Howard French — was of a private converation Rice had after her first trip to Central Africa around this time: “Museveni [of Uganda] and Kagame agree that the basic problem in the Great Lakes is the danger of a resurgence of genocide and they know how to deal with that. The only thing we [i.e., the United States] have to do is look the other way.”…
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Why the drawn knives over Rice? She hasn’t been nominated, yet right? Isn’t Kerry also bandied about as a possibility? Is it a pre-emptive strike, and if so, why?
It isn’t, as Jon Stewart pointed out, as if the other Rice didn’t say there were WMDs after she knew otherwise.
The conventional gossip on GOP motives is that they’d like Kerry to be nominated, because that would open up a Democratic Senate seat…
But I fail to see how that helps the GOP — to have an open seat in Massachusetts, of all places. It’s not like the Republicans’ (temporary) triumph with Scott Brown is very likely to be repeated.
I know this idea doesn’t get much cred here on the blog, but I believe that when John McCain and Lindsey Graham make a big deal about something, it’s because that’s what they actually BELIEVE, and not because of some underhanded partisan scheme on their part.
Given McCain’s and Graham’s views on foreign policy, the misdirection on Benghazi is actually really offensive to them. It’s unlikely Democrats will relate to that, because their views are really different, so they look for alternative explanations.
Also… if it’s a big GOP plot, it seems we’d be hearing the hue and cry from more than just the few Republican senators who are speaking out against Rice. And among them, notice, are three senators (counting Susan Collins) who are not among the usual water-carriers for the party’s more partisan agendas.
Also, all plot theories aside, I think McCain and Graham (and possibly Collins, I don’t know) actually sincerely have more respect for their colleague Kerry than they do Rice.
And this Rwanda angle may help explain why.
Note that the beef about Benghazi is that critics are saying that, rather than tell us straight what happened, Rice was pushing a line that was more to the administration’s partisan advantage. The Foreign Policy writer is noting that she apparently did the same thing in the past with regard to central Africa. To quote again from above, “If we use the word ‘genocide’ and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November [congressional midterm] election?”
Not the kind of question one usually wants to hear from one’s career diplomats.
Maybe they actually believe their own blather.
Yeah, Burl — that’s what I’m on about.
Another case where the simplest, most obvious explanation is probably the right one.
I think McCain and Graham are just doing their Republican chest-beating because they see an opening for some other things – like immigration finally. They have to do some ridiculous mouthing to keep the liberTEArians in the GOP below the simmering point.
Rice did make some unfortunate comments regarding the genocide but she was young and appears to have learned much. Indeed the whole overcompensation thing, to the point of being a hawk is more troublesome to me.
“Brad says:
November 29, 2012 at 7:39 pm
The conventional gossip on GOP motives is that they’d like Kerry to be nominated, because that would open up a Democratic Senate seat…”
This. Although I really don’t see them derailing Rice. I don’t think they will have the votes honestly.
“But I fail to see how that helps the GOP — to have an open seat in Massachusetts, of all places. It’s not like the Republicans’ (temporary) triumph with Scott Brown is very likely to be repeated.”
Brown was elected in a special election previously. It was a one man show. So ANY right winger that had money to burn put it into this race to try to scrape a senate seat back.
They are banking on lighting in a bottle again.
Midterm elections and even moreso special elections favor the GOP. Given that Brown outperformed Romney in MA this past election gives them a realistic shot at winning Kerry’s seat if he were to become Sec of State. Seems like a rather diabolical scheme but success is certainly plausible.
Susan Rice: More party hack than diplomat.
I’m sure that the R’s would like to pick up Kerry’s senate seat, if it were possible, but like Tavis said, it’s like lighting striking twice.
IMHO, there’s two things at play:
1) The R’s are mad because Rice came out and lied/read incorrect talking points to mislead the public on the Libya situation prior to the election.
2) There’s a certain collegiality in the Senate, and the R’s feel like Sen. Kerry might make a better SecState than Amb. Rice.
I always prefer ketchup to rice with my State Department.
The R’s are mad because Rice came out and lied/read incorrect talking points to mislead the public on the Libya situation prior to the election.
-Silence
It’s all faux anger. Rice did nothing wrong. They thought they had a campaign issue then when that blew up in their face they doubled down on this nonsense. Now there is no recourse but to play this silly game out to the end.
I don’t make the kind of big deal about it that Graham and McCain make. But on the other hand, I don’t excuse Rice, either.
It IS disturbing that, several days after the incident, she was going on national television and saying things that were so wrong — and which we had known for days were wrong. It DOES tend to point either to something that’s not kosher, or incompetence of a sort you wouldn’t want in a secretary of state.
If Graham and McCain are engaging in hyperbole on this, so is the president when he says “Susan Rice is extraordinary” and that he “Couldn’t be prouder of the job that she’s done.” It might not be a firing offense, but I don’t think I’d be busting my buttons with pride in a subordinate who had performed the way she did on national television.