Dr. Susan Rice,
This week while fielding questions at a foreign policy lunch you broke out a new piece of your stand-up act. The "scoff at the idiots still asking about Benghazi" portion of your routine actually scored laughs from the mostly friendly crowd who came to lunch with you.
“Danged if I know,” Rice said, to audience laughter. “I mean honestly, the administration has produced, I think, 25,000 pages of documents. It’s hard to imagine what further will come of yet another committee."
Please excuse me if I didn't see the humor in it.
Besides being the only National Security Advisor to perhaps have ever used the word "danged" in public, (How does one dang? And how did it become past tense?) your assertion that the number of documents turned over to the committees investigating Benghazi to date speaks to a degree of transparency by the administration you work for or even yourself--is truly laugh worthy.
Yeah, thanks but I'm not buying the "Susie from the hood" comedy sketch and I will not be ordering the DVD.
Instead Advisor Rice what I would like to do is pose a few of the questions that remain unanswered. Questions that the families of the victims of the Benghazi attack deserve answers to. And ones that were not covered in your 25,000 pages.
1. Where was President Obama between roughly 5:30pm EST--following his meeting with Defense Secretary Panetta--and 6:00am the next morning? We've been given zero details, and it seems as though he was no where to be found.
2. Why didn't Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not call back--as she promised she would--to the State Department number two in Libya? Ambassador Stevens was incapacitated, Gregory Hicks places a call to Secretary Clinton, who after speaking with him promises a response and action and a follow up phone call. As Hicks has testified before Congress, he is still awaiting that call.
Recommended
3. Why did President Obama blame the attack on a video the morning after the attack before leaving for a fund-raiser in Las Vegas? Due to testimony from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta we know that the President knew that it was a terrorist attack by no later than 5:30pm the night of the attack.
4. Why did the President and his team insist on placing you as the administration spokesperson on five Sunday news shows five days after the attack? At the time you had no connection to national security and your present role was that of the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. You were not qualified on your face, background, or position to be offering opinion on how an international terrorist attack had gone down.
5. Why did you lie to the American people on five Sunday news shows? It was easily decipherable, once emails were obtained via Freedom of Information requests that you had been coached and instructed to lie to the American people on the five Sunday news shows. The question remains as to why you did. Shortly thereafter you were promoted to National Security Advisor--hence rewarded for lying to those of us who pay your salary.
6. Weeks later why did the President of the United States tell the same lie to the gathered body at the United Nations General Assembly? I might need to point out that he was clearly told that this had been a terrorist attack since about thirty minutes into the incident.
7. Why did help never come? Of all the questions the families of the victims have the right to have answered, this is the big kahuna. There was an obvious intensive strategy session pulled together to figure out how to deal with the press, to advance the narrative of the "video" as opposed to the facts, and a process of selecting who would be the mouthpiece for this PR stunt. You fulfilled your duties and got promoted. But why didn't the basic degree of help come for those who had been signaling trouble for more than 11 hours? The American military wants to know the answer to this question because they proudly serve with the basic understanding, that if they are caught in a firefight--their brothers will come running to the sound of the guns. But in Benghazi they were purposefully cut off. Those who radioed in, requesting permission to go help, were told to stand down.
Dr. Rice there are a good many more questions that the families of the victims of 9.11.12 have for you. Questions like, "Why did President Obama and Secretary Clinton look the families in the eye at Andrews Air Base, repeat the stagnant lie about the video, and then promise justice--all while the man who plotted the attack, sits in open-air cafes in Benghazi to this day doing full length press interviews?"
And yet, when asked if you thought this committee will do any good, you snickered, sneered, and went all "hood-rat" by saying, "Danged if I know..."
Dr. Rice the former and far more distinguished Dr. Rice who preceded you--a woman of integrity, character, and modesty--would've never been so flippant in responding to anything touching the deaths of brave Americans. She would also have done something else had she been in your shoes and had been asked by the President to lie to the American people five times in a row on the Sunday talk show circuit.
She would have resigned.
Why didn't you?
There will be an after life to your current political hackery. Reputation will be the center of your capital to wield for yourself. And at the pace you are going, it is unlikely you will have much left.
But by resigning you could stage at least a modest protest to the way things were handled, and pledge to the American people--YOUR BOSS--that you will never allow yourself to become embroiled in something this disgraceful again.
So why haven't you resigned?
Mr. Panetta this week, instead of laughing off the questions surrounding the upcoming select committee on Benghazi, answered them. He went on the record advising Democrats to participate in this important investigation, and to let the evidence lead them all to the proper conclusion.
He's doing the proper thing.
Will you?
#WhyHaventYouResigned
Join the conversation as a VIP Member