Benghazi: A tale of two scapegoats?

(Rice)

I offer this post not as an apologist for anything that led up to the deadly attack in Benghazi last Sept. 11, but only as an example of the back stories in Washington that often reveal grudges, petty personality conflicts and raw partisan conflicts.

(Nuland)

Clearly, mistakes were made that led to killing of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, a highly respected U.S. foreign service officer, at the diplomatic outpost in Libya. Clearly, there was a frantic, “cover your a—“ battle within the Obama administration between the State Department and the CIA in the days immediately following the terrorist attack.

But when Congress got involved, old Washington ways subtlety infected the whole fact-finding process. Democrats and Republicans put support for their "team" ahead of sorting out the truth. In a revealing piece in the New York Times, the very different treatment of two potential scapegoats makes me wonder how very differently this story would have played out if Victoria Nuland of the State Department appeared on all those Sunday news-talk shows following the attack rather than UN Ambassador Susan Rice.

The many emails that have surfaced show that Nuland played a key role in toning down the now-infamous talking points that Rice delivered on five news shows.

So, here is how the Times frames the issue:

“Nuland, a well-regarded 29-year veteran of the Foreign Service, once served as deputy national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and as ambassador to NATO under President George W. Bush. She is married to Robert Kagan, a (well known) neoconservative historian and commentator who advised Mitt Romney during the 2012 campaign.

“Rice, by contrast, was a former Clinton administration official and a foreign policy adviser to Obama in his 2008 campaign, during which she tangled with the Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain. When Rice emerged as a leading candidate for Secretary of State after Obama’s re-election, McCain, an Arizona Republican, became one of her most formidable opponents on Capitol Hill. Under pressure, she eventually pulled her name from consideration.”

“When Obama (recently) nominated Nuland as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs, (Sen. Lindsey) Graham and McCain issued a joint statement declaring, ‘… Victoria Nuland has a long and distinguished record of service to our nation in both Republican and Democrat administrations.’

Both Rice and Nuland became involved in the Benghazi controversy after the fact: “… Nuland when she was brought into a Friday night deliberation involving the State Department, the CIA, the White House and other agencies about talking points prepared by the CIA; and Rice when she was handed the finished talking points the night before she went on television.”