Democrats Oppose Nomination of Rice to Secretary of State

WaPo has run an editorial conspiratorially half-baked suggesting that Democratic opposition to Rice’s nomination are racia

lly motivated:

Rice’s nomination, noted the Washington Post, garnered “the most negative votes cast against a nominee for that post in 180 years.” As the Senate debated her nomination, Senator Barbara Boxer charged that Rice “frightened the American people” into supporting the Iraq War; Senator Jim Jeffords accused her of being part of an effort to “distort information” in the service of “political objectives”; and Senator Pat Leahy, who voted in her favor, endorsed her by saying that her tenure as national-security adviser lacked “strong leadership, openness, and sound judgment.”

Oh, snap! Waitaminute…

Oops! That was back in 2004!!! A different Rice! The one we’re talking about isn’t a Republican but a Democrat. Here’s the WaPo editorial:

The oddity of the Republican response to what happened in Benghazi is partly this focus on half-baked conspiracy theories rather than on the real evidence of failures by the State Department, Pentagon and CIA in protecting the Benghazi mission. What’s even stranger is the singling out of Ms. Rice, a Rhodes scholar and seasoned policymaker who, whatever her failings, is no one’s fool.

Could it be, as members of the Congressional Black Caucus are charging, that the signatories of the letter are targeting Ms. Rice because she is an African American woman? The signatories deny that, and we can’t know their hearts. What we do know is that more than 80 of the signatories are white males, and nearly half are from states of the former Confederacy. You’d think that before launching their broadside, members of Congress would have taken care not to propagate any falsehoods of their own.

Get that? Opposition to Susan Rice must be due to race. Forget what even left-wing non-think tank Think Progress notes in regards to Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham who are high-profile leaders in opposing Susan Rice:

Host Soledad O’Brien challenged Burgess’ opposition to Susan Rice, noting that Republicans had supported Condoleezza Rice’s nomination as Secretary of State in 2005, despite the Bush administration’s role in the massive intelligence failures that led to the Iraq war. Burgess struggled to explain the contradiction. He initially claimed that the media was far more critical of Bush’s intelligence failures than Obama, but when O’Brien laughed away that claim, he told her to take up the question with Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), both of whom supported Condoleezza but now oppose Susan:

If I remember this correctly, Condoleezza Rice’s ethnicity at the time of her nomination was black/”African”-American. Who opposed her nomination back then and who supported her?

Legal Insurrection:

The WaPo Editorial Board must have forgotten the opposition to Condoleezza Rice’s confirmation, which was led by former Klansman Robert Byrd and a guy who left a girl to die:

Leading the charge against Rice on Tuesday were Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Barbara Boxer of California.

Boxer, one of two Democrats to vote against Rice’s nomination in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Rice’s answers to her questions were “completely nonresponsive” and raised more issues about her credibility than they answered.

Rice, Condoleezza, received fewer favorable votes in her Secretary of State confirmation than any nominee in almost 25 years and more negative votes than any nominee in 180 years. Twelve of the thirteen votes against Rice were from White Males, including the aforementioned former Klansman.

Boxer accused Rice of lying about Sadaam Hussein’s WMD program, and Rice pushed back that they relied on the available intelligence, among other things.

This would become a theme in Boxer’s continuously demeaning conduct towards Rice, which included mocking the fact that Rice had no children during the Iraq Surge hearings in January 2007 (note, Boxer also used the term “dark cloud” which, had it been used by a Republican as to a black Democratic nominee, surely would have been called a dog whistle or worse)(full video here):

Of course, WaPo isn’t the only news outlet or liberal pundit pushing forth the race card:

By all accounts, the Democratic Ms. Rice has received far more delicate treatment at the hands of politicians and the media. During an otherwise uneventful stint as ambassador to the United Nations, she is now under fire for attributing the Benghazi attacks to “a hateful and offensive video” on five Sunday morning news programs. In the wake of these comments, Senator John McCain described her as “not being very bright,” and stated that, “if she didn’t know better, she’s not qualified” to be secretary of state. Senator Lindsey Graham noted, “I don’t trust her,” and that “if she didn’t know better, she shouldn’t be the voice of America.”

MSNBC executive and former Newsweek White House correspondent Richard Wolffe spent Monday night parsing the aspects of John McCain’s racial animus. Wolffe seemed even to surprise host Chris Matthews — not exactly shy about identifying racism in the GOP — who asked, incredulously, “You’re saying that McCain is being driven by racial prejudice here?” According to Wolffe, “There is no other way to look at this.”

And when Matthews- who himself has constantly cried racism- points out the inconvenient fact that McCain supported Condi Rice, Wolffe poo-poos it away by claiming McCain’s support of Condi was also due to racism:

McCain’s support for Rice in 2004, he explained, is further evidence of his racism. “John McCain said the people — the Democrats who were questioning Condi Rice’s credential — they were just engaged with bitterness, they needed to move on,” Wolffe said. “Why has he changed his tune? What is it about Susan Rice?” The question, obviously, is rhetorical.

Wolffe is not alone. Ohio congresswoman Marcia Fudge noted sorrowfully, “It is a shame that anytime something goes wrong, they [Republicans] pick on women and minorities.”

Oh, white- er, I mean “right”: Susi (can I call her “Susi”?) Rice is also a woman. Let’s not forget about the GOP War on Women. Oh, wait…wasn’t Condi Rice also, um….a woman?

Must have been anti-woman when President Bush selected Colin Powell as Secretary of State in his first term.

I’m so confused….

South Carolina congressman Jim Clyburn took things a step further, telling CNN on Tuesday that he hears racial “code words” in Republican opposition to Rice’s nomination. Those are words such as “incompetent.” “These kinds of terms that those of us — especially those of us who were grown and raised in the South — we’ve been hearing these little words and phrases all of our lives and we get insulted by them,” Clyburn said.

Anything and everything Republicans and conservatives say are codewords for racism and bigotry.

Who woulda thunk it?

Aren’t we all more troubled by this constant slander and hypocrisy on the part of partisan Democrats?