Profiled last night by 60 Minutes, National Security Advisor Susan Rice said she doesn’t have time to think about the Benghazi attacks and the false narrative spread by the administration that cost her a shot at the secretary of State job.
Then ambassador to the UN, Rice was sent out on the news shows after the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks to tell the story that a spontaneous protest over an anti-Muhammad YouTube video was the catalyst for the assault on the diplomatic compound that left four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, dead.
“What our assessment is as of the present, is in fact what, it began spontaneously in Benghazi,” Rice said at the time on Face the Nation.
Her talking points about the planned al-Qaeda-linked attack were brought up by senators who planned to block Rice’s nomination to the top job at the State Department. John Kerry ended up getting the post and Obama named Rice to a position that doesn’t need Senate confirmation.
“I don’t have time to think about a false controversy,” Rice said in the Sunday night interview. “In the midst of all of the swirl about things like talking points, the administration’s been working very, very hard across the globe to review our security of our embassies and our facilities. That’s what we ought to be focused on.”
When pressed on why then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn’t take Sunday show duty after the attack, Rice said “she had just gone through an incredibly painful and stressful week.”
“Secretary Clinton, as our chief diplomat, had to reach out to the families, had to greet the bodies upon their arrival at Andrews Air Force Base. If I were her, the last thing I would have wanted to do is five Sunday morning talk shows. So I think it’s perfectly understandable,” Rice said.
“So when the White House asked me, I agreed to do it,” she added.
The Benghazi attackers are still at large.
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