On Sunday’s broadcast of “Meet the Press,” Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker said U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice probably won’t be nominated to be the next secretary of state — and even Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, who defended Rice, admitted she wasn’t sure the diplomat is worth the trouble of nominating.
“I don’t think she’ll be nominated,” Corker said. “But I have told people certainly I will give her a fair hearing. I do think that the underlying issue here is people have seen her far more as a political operative and not a principle. And I think that’s what the White House is witnessing right now.”
McCaskill told host David Gregory that Rice has been unfairly blamed for the aftermath of the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012, but added that President Barack Obama may still want to consider passing on her nomination.
“I think it’s terribly unfair what has happened to Susan Rice,” McCaskill said. “I do not understand for the life of me the talking points came from the intelligence community. Yet you don’t hear one criticism of David Petraeus. It was his shop that produced the talking points that Susan Rice talked about, and she mentioned al-Qaida in the interviews that Sunday morning.”
“I don’t know whether [Obama] should take on the fight or not,” McCaskill continued. “I know this: What has happened to Susan Rice is terribly unfair — if you really understand what went on, it is terribly unfair that she had be the scapegoat for this, when really the failures ought to be at the last of the head of the intelligence community that produced those talking points. But none of the guys will say a word about David Petraeus.”