Yet More Shameless Attacks on Susan Rice

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Here’s a shocker. Susan Rice, in a meeting with John McCain and the rest of the Senate’s Benghazi brigade today, acknowledged that her initial description of the attacks had been mistaken. This netted her….exactly nothing:

Ms. Rice’s acknowledgment, in a meeting on Capitol Hill with three Republican senators who had sharply criticized her earlier statements in a series of televsion interviews after the attack, seemed to do little to quell their anger. The senators emerged from the meeting voicing even deeper reservations about Ms. Rice’s role in the messy aftermath of the Benghazi attack, which resulted in the deaths of four Americans.

“We are significantly troubled by many of the answers that we got, and some that we didn’t get,” Senator John McCain of Arizona said to reporters. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said, “Bottom line: I’m more concerned than I was before” — a sentiment echoed by Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire.

These people are just shameless. By this point, they know perfectly well that Rice never said anything deliberately misleading. On September 15 she passed along the unclassified assessment of the intelligence community as of September 15, and that’s it. But they just can’t stand to admit that they were wrong. It’s like watching a bunch of preening teenagers facing off in the schoolyard. It’s all just a big game to them.

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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