and then the next day I saw Susan Rice tell me that the protest story was true. Yes she added qualifications but she said that the government believed that the protest story was true. My opinion at the time that the story I heard on Rachel Maddow was a lot more credible than what Susan Rice said. So much so that it struck me as odd that Rice said what she said.

Rachel does great work debunking the "fact-checkers", including Glenn Kessler. Well just a week ago Kessler, defending Rice, wrote a flat-out falsehood, easily debunked: he stated that the media hadn't published contradictory reports until after the Rice appearance. That is simply not true. When Rice made her statements, myself and a lot of other people, including people at DU, saw it as contradicting reports they had heard already.

So Kessler wasn't really fact-checking, he was just defending Rice for whatever reason. That's fine, but Rachel does great work pointing out that that is not fact-checking.

Maddowblog!

Do you know what they had for breakfast?
Why not?
Who won the 1954 World Series?
Don't you think a patriot and potential Secretary of State should know that?

(Feel free to submit your pertinent questions to Sen. John McCain.)

But he can't say that, so we get all this bullshit instead.

Kerry's 2008 speech pointed out that he had been wrong on every fp issue. Yet McCain is still respectful to both of these men.

I think there was a different tone and no past history -- and yes, it could be that it is because she is black and female.

I think the Benghazi thing has sticking power with him because he likely sees it as something if everything were known would have given the election to Romney. However, NOTHING real suggests that and the issue lost traction not on the Sunday Rice spoke, but in the 2nd debate where Obama correctly said he called it terrorism the next day - something - videotape and transcripts to the contrary - McCain still denies.

The real question is how many Republican Senators will follow McCain in voting no on cloture. We have 53 Democrats - the question is are their 7 Republicans willing to buck their party. Ironically, if she is nominated, the Senator who will - through his position - have to try to find the 7 Senators is Kerry, who was among the first to defend her on this.

The whole thing smacks of opportunism to the nth degree. Nevertheless, Ms Rice makes a most congenial target for McCain.

Other things worth considering include:

1.) She is NOT Biden or Kerry, who are not safe targets
2.) She is female, non-white, not a politician, and way the heck smarter than any of those attacking her
3.) Her views do not coincide with McCain's lifelong views on FP and defense
4.) She seems a "safe target" as the President says
5.) McCain is about to become unimportant, hence follows in Lieberman's footsteps by trying to reverse his doom with noise

I do think in hindsight that Obama, the state department, and the re-election team made a mistake when they send her to the tv shows and gave her those talking points. They knew this was the Republican fantasy scandal (rather than tragedy) and, at least Obama, knew that he wanted to nominate her.

This is all political and the question is whether there are 7 R Senators in the lame duck or 5 in the new Senate that will vote for cloture. It is also possible that the filibuster rules will change. I would say that it would lead to anger if she were confirmed with just Democratic votes - but their anger is that Obama won re-election.

A bit naive, yes, not to see immediately that it WOULD BE exploited. Nevertheless, I myself am often dumbfounded by what people will stoop to.

Although I have toyed with the idea that there is an element of "Please proceed, Governor" to it, since I expect Obama to win this fight, and Ms Rice could come out of it with added stature, and McCain could be permanently relegated to the dustbin.

Ambassador Rice has given a good account of herself so far, in my view.

The entire Benghazi farce has been a molehill made into bigger things by Bullshit Mountain. It was supposed to be the BIG scandal that would surely turn the election for Rmoney and disgrace Democrats forever and ever. It would fix the sting of President Obama killing bin Laden and being right in his support of the Arab spring; specifically the overthrow of Gadaffi. They needed something/anything to show this administration was inept and to restore the self-imposed image of rushpublicans as being the "party of national security".

In the wake of Willard's defeat, Gramps is now trying to "rally the troops" by carrying on this poutrage despite how silly it looks to the reality-based world. He's speaking directly to the brainstems who still thrive on faux and hate radio and attempting to use this "bully pulpit" to bully the President and the rest of the beltway chattering class into making some kind of concession. They want a "head"...be it Rice's (preferred) or someone else. The sting is even stronger in the wake of Petraeus' (Johnnie's pet general) fall from grace.

In short...it's a tantrum...but it's not just McCain's...it's shared by all the denizens of Bullshit Mountain...

for everyone to try to destroy Rice's credibility. She hasn't even been nominated and the pile on is epic.

This is all about intimidation...trying to show the "colored fella" the old white guys are still in charge. Yep, it is epic and a desperate move from a party that sees its power slipping away. Expect a bigger shitfit when the new filibuster rules are made public. If Reid's smart, he'll do a quick up and down vote and be done with it...

Cheers!