Politics
Republican opposition to a possible nomination of Susan Rice at State Dept. begins to crack
But instead of repeating his prior assertion that he was “dead set” against a Rice promotion, Graham suggested he looked forward to hearing her out. If Rice were nominated, “there will be a lot of questions asked of her about this event and others,” said Graham, R-S.C.
The subtle shift in GOP tenor on Rice could be the result of internal grumblings on how far to take party opposition. Democrats picked up extra seats in the election to maintain their narrow majority, making it that much harder for the remaining 45 Republicans to block the president’s nominees.
One senior GOP Senate aide said Sunday that Republicans hadn’t united against Rice and were not convinced that she was worth going after.
“There’s a definite sense within the caucus that you have to be conservative about where you put your firepower,” said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly on internal GOP deliberations. “The question is whether the caucus is prepared to filibuster her, and I’m not sure we were.”
Intelligence officials have said they knew immediately that the September 11 incident was a terrorist attack and suspected that the local al-Qaeda branch was involved. But they also initially believed that the attack may have grown spontaneously from a protest against the film.
Unclassified talking points provided to Rice and other administration officials in the days following the attack omitted references to terrorists and al-Qaeda because intelligence officials said the information was tenuous and could tip their hand in the investigation. The administration also didn’t want to prejudice a criminal investigation.
Rice said she used those talking points in September 16 interviews in defending the administration’s protection of overseas diplomats, saying “clusters of extremists” had “hijacked” film protests. Officials say it wasn’t until after Rice spoke that intelligence agencies adjusted the assessment to clarify that the attack was not spontaneous or related to a protest.
