WASHINGTON -- Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said she found the treatment of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice by Republican senators "appalling," arguing that her consideration to be the next Secretary of State became a "political football" that had very little to do with her actual career and record as a public servant.
"I just think it's appalling what happened here. Appalling," she told The Huffington Post in an interview on Friday morning, noting she had known Rice since she was 4 years old. "I think there are many aspects to this which ... are just completely fabricated and unfair, and just not the right way to treat someone who has dedicated her life to serving the United States."
Madeleine Albright was, of course, the first female Secretary of State. She's also dead on accurate in her assessment of what Senators McCain and Graham did in this whole matter.
A few weeks ago I asked "Will Facts on Benghazi Intel Talking Points Stop the Republican Madness?" In that piece, I wrote:
Now we have further confirmation, this time from the director of national intelligence, that there was no politicization by the administration of the intelligence information. The information -- which Susan Rice delivered to the country on the Sunday talk shows -- came lock, stock, and barrel from the intelligence community. Susan Rice -- whom Senators McCain and Graham have vowed to block if she is nominated to be Secretary of State and whom McCain condemned as "unqualified" for the position -- did her job and presented the intelligence community's assessment of what happened in Benghazi. What else should she have done?
I'd like to think this recent news will help lance the boil of this Republican outcry over the supposed politicization of the intelligence information on the Benghazi attacks. We'll have to see. I'll just leave it at that.
Now that Susan Rice has had to withdraw her name from consideration to be nominated as Secretary of State, we've got our answer. Madeleine Albright got it exactly right.
PS-Please check out my new book Obama's America: A Transformative Vision of Our National Identity, published by Potomac Books, where I discuss Barack Obama's ideas on racial, ethnic, and national identity in detail, and contrast his inclusive vision to language coming from Mitt Romney, Rush Limbaugh and (some) others on the right. You can read a review by DailyKos's own Greg Dworkin here.