Susan Rice and Benghazi

The uproar in the G.O.P. over the Benghazi affair has been flabbergasting.  I'd been wondering what's been sustaining it since the presidential election is over.

It made a bit of sense during the campaign.  After a terrible primary campaign, a dud of a convention and a series of gaffes, Governor Romney was behind in the opinion polls and Republican enthusiasm for his prospects was fading.  Roger Simon, a reporter for Politico, wrote a satirical piece about how U.S. Representative Paul Ryan was sulking and calling Romney "the Stench."  People believed it was real; that's how lackluster Romney's performance was.  Then Benghazi happened.

In the same secretly taped video of Romney at the fundraiser calling 47% of Americans irresponsible moochers, he had also discussed foreign policy and Iran.  As an aside, he said that if an event like Operation Eagle Claw happened (President Jimmy Carter's failed rescue attempt in the 1980 hostage crisis), he would "try to find a way to use it."  That's what Benghazi became for Romney: A political opportunity.  When he began attacking President Obama over the administration's handling of the American embassy riot in Cairo, Egypt, and the militia assault on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, it electrified Republican voters.  They had their "Aha!" moment.  It was a chance to tear down Obama's strong foreign policy rating.

But there was even more to it than that.  There were, and continue to be, dark undercurrents of hints and implications that the Obama administration was covering up some unspecified nefarious thing, but no Republican has clearly articulated what it might be.

The failure of American security in Benghazi was one of those things that happens in almost any kind of bureaucratic endeavor where one part of an organization fails to support another.  Add an extraordinary event like the militia assault in an extraordinary place, a state without a government, during one of those times, and the chain of responsibility breaks down when a weak link fails.  Benghazi was a failure in security, nothing more.  It's certainly appropriate to investigate the root causes of that, but it isn't some monumental scandal.  Continuing to portray Benghazi as a sinister coverup after the election smacks of something very irrational, but what might it be?

Until last night, I had been assuming that Republicans were just bitter about their loss in the presidential election and couldn't drop the Benghazi issue out of wounded pride.  After all, they had been playing it up during the election, and it would be as much as admitting naked political exploitation to suddenly drop it just because the election was over.  However, I couldn't see a way forward for Republicans by continuing to harp on it until a conversation with a friend last night clued me in.  It's not irrational after all: The reason Republicans are still harping on Benghazi has to do with the second Obama administration's nomination of a new secretary of state.

Republicans are using Benghazi to try and block Ambassador Susan Rice's potential nomination to the post because they assume Massachusetts U.S. Senator John Kerry will be Obama's second choice, and they want to give former Massachusetts U.S. Senator Scott Brown a chance to run for Kerry's Senate seat if he leaves it for State.  That has to be the reason because otherwise the Republicans risk being what they look like, which is very irrational and bitter.  Their hyping of the Benghazi incident makes no other sense.  Although I'm loath to say it, they're smarter than that.  The partisan balance of power in the Senate, Republican pride over both Benghazi and their disappointment about Liz Warren is our "Aha!" moment.  There's logic as well as emotion in the G.O.P.  Otherwise, it makes no sense.

New Hampshire's U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte isn't helping our state or the country with her role in the affair.  What she's doing is giving Senators McCain and Graham cover as a diversity beard so that it's not just two white guys picking on an African American woman.  Ayotte is helping her party, not New Hampshire and the United States.

I predict a fight.  Obama's going to dig in with Rice.  He has to now.  We're talking about post-debt ceiling Obama, not him of the first two years.  No way is he going to risk his perceived newfound strength as a negotiator on an array of issues by backing away from Rice and dismaying his base supporters.  No good of such a confrontation will come to Republicans because Benghazi is now the millstone around their necks, not Obama's.  He should let them try to swim with it.