The Flawed Republican Process

When the Republicans concern themselves with what is happening outside of the United States, it’s generally not for a good reason. And now, 97 Republican members of the House of Representatives have signed a letter stating that the comments made by Susan Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, concerning the American embassy attack in Benghazi that killed an American diplomat, “caused irreparable damage to her credibility both at home and around the world.”

No matter that 10 of the signatories will no longer be in the House of Representatives a few weeks from now. They were defeated in the November 6 election. No matter also that the House of Representatives has nothing to do with the confirmation process of Hillary Clinton’s successor; it’s the Senate that is in charge of this. This petition is simply a way of attacking the White House in another manner after losing the presidential election.

Susan Rice explained, in defense of the Obama administration, that the attack in Benghazi, which coincided with the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, was due to Islamic anger provoked by the showing of a violent, anti-Islam video a few days earlier. This explanation didn’t satisfy the Republicans still wanting guerilla warfare after failing to easily defeat opponents in the presidential and local elections.

Notably, those Republicans accuse Susan Rice, an African-American, of “incompetence.” Now, in the Southern states of the U.S., everyone understands this code: it is simply the fact that Susan Rice is black.

What is amusing, as always with the Republicans, is that we didn’t hear from them when George Bush’s secretary of state and the rest of the Bush administration launched a war against Iraq on the basis of completely bogus information (we’re still searching for “weapons of mass destruction”). From one side, we have an attacked embassy and four deaths. On the other side, we have a war that put a country on its knees, destabilized an entire region, and killed hundreds of thousands of people, not including American deaths. Where are the fact-finding and resignation requests from the Republicans?

Behind this pitiful story is another one, as is often the case. By trying to destabilize Susan Rice, the Republicans want to prevent Obama from choosing her as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s successor. This would undoubtedly oblige the 44th president to choose Massachusetts senator John Kerry, thus opening the possibility of a by-election that could possibly allow the Republicans to take back the Senate.

According to the last survey from the Pew Center, only the Republican voters concerned themselves with the unfortunate affair in Benghazi. The GOP slogan in 2012: Always look behind (but not too far behind).