Benghazi

When I first heard the news from Benghazi on NPR, absent any commentary, my take was simply that given the scope of our international activity, this sort of thing was bound to happen. Two months of voluminous commentary have done nothing to change my thinking.

It was predictable that Republicans would try to make as much as they could out of it. No matter that the same people who lauded the administration that presided over the murder of nearly three thousand Americans at work in New York City are livid about the four who were killed at our consulate in Libya. These people have as much trouble with math as they do with science. 

What I find particularly silly is their objection to the possibility of Susan Rice as Secretary of State because of her belated announcement that the perpetrators were terrorists. It’s no secret that there are lots of people in the world who don’t like us, particularly that part of the world. Whether the killings were a response to a hate film produced by a holy-roller preacher or an al Qaeda plot is important, but only to the professionals in charge of national security who should know ASAP. The public can stand a few days wait. Whatever Ms Rice revealed was declassified information that her superiors, which include the president, permitted. I’ll grant that the Barack Obama organization may have thought better than to release this information the week before what was expected to be a close election. But then these people are not dummies.

I started this letter with no opinion as to who Barack Obama should nominate as Secretary of State. My guess is that after the ruckus made by John McCain and Lindsay Graham, two Republican “moderates,” he may have no choice but to nominate Ms Rice. Having just won an election with something to spare, he may feel compelled to meet this first challenge head on.

However I’ve now come to the conclusion that the person for the job is that other Rice, Condoleeza. She’s already had four years experience at State and knows all about terrorism. Remember she was National Security Adviser on September 11, 2001. And lest we forget, it was her warning that helped give us the incentive to invade Iraq and escape Saddam Hussein’s dreaded mushroom cloud.