In her Thursday FoxNews.com column, Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers called President Barack Obama’s defense of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice during Wednesday’s press conference “silly” and “sexist.”
The president, who urged critics to go after him instead and referred to Rice as an “easy target,” chastised Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham for threatening to block Rice’s potential nomination to be the next secretary of state. (RELATED VIDEO: Krauthammer mocks Obama’s attempt at playing ‘Lancelot’)
Rice has come under fire for repeatedly suggesting shortly after the pre-planned Sept. 11 terror attack on the U.S. Embassy in Libya that an anti-Islam YouTube video was behind the violence, which she claimed was spontaneous.
“Imagine George Bush saying that people criticized John Bolton because he was an ‘easy target.’ He wouldn’t,” Powers wrote. “It’s absurd and chauvinistic for Obama to talk about the woman he thinks should be secretary of state of the United States as if she needs the big strong man to come to her defense because a couple of Senators are criticizing her.”
On Wednesday, Powers made a similar case on Megyn Kelly’s “America Live,” noting Obama left out mentioning New Hampshire Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte as one of Rice’s detractors so that it he could portray the situation as “two men beating up on a woman.”
“This idea that they are going after her because she is, quote, ‘an easy target?’” Powers said. “I don’t know what they are talking about. She is the U.N. ambassador, who was sent out to speak to the American people about this issue. That’s why they’re focused on her. And it’s interesting, Megyn, how you pointed out in the last interview, [President Obama] sort of portrayed it as these two men beating up on a woman. He left out Sen. [Kelly] Ayotte, who is part of this. And kind of made it seem like he was coming to her defense. It was very paternalistic, I thought. Like, how dare they go after her.”
“She’s the U.N. ambassador,” Powers continued. “She’s more than capable of handling this. The question is whether or not it’s fair to pin it on her, and I think that’s a different discussion. And it certainly makes sense that if he was going to nominate this woman — I’m not saying that he is — as secretary of state, of course she’s going to face questions about this.”
