It's Not About the Sexism

I am so livid at these bogus charges of sexism being levied against the big, bad white senators who oppose the prospect of a Susan Rice nomination as Secretary of State. 

A presumptive nominee can be opposed because of her substantive policy, her views, her covering up for the Administration over Libya. Is Kelly Ayotte expressing skepticism because she's a sexist? What about Susan Collins? What about Dana Milbank?

Rice’s pugilism provoked the Russians to weigh in this week in opposition to her nomination as secretary of state. The Russian business daily Kommersant quoted an anonymous Russian foreign ministry official as saying that Rice, who quarreled with Russia over Syria, is “too ambitious and aggressive,” and her appointment would make it “more difficult for Moscow to work with Washington.”

Compared with this, the flap over Libya is relatively minor — but revealing. It’s true that, in her much-criticized TV performance, she was reciting talking points given to her by the intelligence agencies. But that’s the trouble. Rice stuck with her points even though they had been contradicted by the president of the Libyan National Assembly, who, on CBS’s “Face the Nation” just before Rice, said there was “no doubt” that the attack on Americans in Benghazi “was preplanned.” Rice rebutted the Libyan official, arguing — falsely, it turned out — that there was no evidence of such planning.

True, Rice was following orders from the White House, which she does well. But the nation’s top diplomat needs to show more sensitivity and independence — traits Clinton has demonstrated in abundance. Obama can do better at State than Susan Rice.

What about Jennifer Rubin?

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar as Dr. Freud said. Maybe the uniform criticism from Republicans and the refreshing candor coming from liberals in good standing at the New York Times is actually based on the merits, Rice's that is. Truth be told, she was a washout in the Clinton administration (where she sat idly by while the Rwandan genocide unfolded), signed on with Obama's campaign where she was an uncommonly partisan foreign policy adviser, had to be hushed when she attacked another woman, Hillary Clinton, and then wound up at the United Nations, where she has had the most undistinguished career of any U.N. representative in recent memory. (She rounded up all of eight "no" votes on the Palestinian declaration of statehood and has made serial excuses for the heinous Human Rights Council. A convenient list of her underachievements can be found here.) That's before we got to Benghazi. And her investment portfolio.

What about Maureen Dowd?

Are the Republican senators unreasonable? Or is the secretary of state-manqué undiplomatic? Did the senators sandbag Susan Rice? Or did Rice further inflame a tense situation? Is it a case of shooting the messenger and playing politics? Or is national security dangerously infected with politics?

It seems as if it would have been simple enough for Rice to quickly admit that the administration talking points she used on the Sept. 16 Sunday shows about the slaughter in Benghazi were misleading. But she went silent. She has no wartime consigliere and, aside from the president’s angry postelection defense of Rice, the White House — perhaps relieved that she was taking the heat rather than the president — wasn’t running a strong damage control operation that clarified matters.

Were critics of Condoleeza Rice accused of being sexists? No?

It makes me ragey that you can't criticize a women, or a black women, and the leftist members of the press not accuse you of racism and/or sexism. It's a McCarthy-ite tactic designed to shut down opposition by placing the label of bigotry on you. Don't like Obama? You are a bigot. Don't like Hillary? Sexist. It's almost an SNL sketch ludicrous, is it not?

But that's not how some see it. Frankly, most Americans would have no clue that Susan Rice was black if it was not for the relentlessness of the media expounding upon that point. The hypocrisy of this is my rage of the day. It's not about the sexism. Not even close.