Arizonans need to demand the resignation of Sen. John McCain

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Arizonans need to demand the resignation of Sen. John McCain. He has embarrassed us long enough. As I posted the other day, Arizonans to John McCain: 'In the name of God, go!'

Arizona's angry old man, still embittered by his loss to Barack Obama, actually said that the attack on the American consulate office in Benghazi Libya, where four Americans were killed, is “the worst national security
failure of my lifetime.” McCain has completely lost his mind if he believes that. He no longer possesses the mental faculties necessary to be competent to continue to serve in office.

His lifetime? There have been many intelligence failures during his lifetime. To name just a few, the Cuban missile crisis, the Vietnam War (you'd think he would remember that one since he was a guest in the Hanoi Hilton), the Iranian embassy hostage crisis, Iran-Contra, the Marine barracks terrorist bombing and CIA terrorist bombing in Beirut, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the war in Iraq — for which McCain was a cheerleader.

According to Sen. McCain, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice restating a CIA briefing on Face The Nation shortly after the Benghazi attacks based on the intelligence available at that time, GOP Rep. Peter King Admits CIA Approved U.N. Ambassador's Talking Points On Libya, that she somehow was "lying" to the American people. McCain asserts this is a cover-up worse than Watergate.  McCain: Obama Response To Libya Attack Is Worse Than Watergate.

Seriously? A classified briefing was held this week for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which McCain is a member, but Grampy McCrankypants was too busy working his base, the Beltway media villagers, to complain that he is not getting enough information to actually attend that classified briefing, McCain Skipped A Briefing On Benghazi To Hold A Press Conference, where he would have gotten the information he claims he has not received. Most Republicans skipped the classified briefing, and John McCain threw a tantrum when a CNN reporter called him on it.

Think Progress has The Ultimate Guide To McCain's Smear Campaign Against Susan Rice.

McCain doesn't give a damn about what actually happened in Benghazi. What this is really all about is Sen. McCain trying to remain relevant. He is about to be termed out of his Senate Armed Services Committee position. And thanks to Willard "Mittens" Romney losing the election, this Neocon war monger no longer can look forward to his "four more wars!" that he advocated for at the GOP convention.

So McCain is advocating for a Watergate-style committee that would allow him to cochair a committee to engage in scandal mongering, much like what Darrell Issa does in the House — that revealed classified information in his haste to politicize Benghazi earlier, the real scandal — to try to embarrass the Obama administration out of ill will and spite, and his bitterness over losing to Obama. John McCain's Benghazi Committee Plan Would Give Senator New Relevance.

Not even McCain's BFF Joe Lieberman, the committee chairman, believes there is any grounds for such a special committee. Politico reported
that Sen. Susan Collins also did not see the need for a special
committee on Benghazi and even seemed to take a shot at McCain for his
absence during the briefing:

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican on the Homeland
Security and Government Affairs Committee, backed up her chairman,
Lieberman, and dinged McCain, a member of the panel, for missing
Wednesday’s nearly two-hour briefing in the Capitol.

* * *

“I do not see the benefit of creating a brand new committee when we
already have the Senate’s chief oversight committee, plus the
Intelligence Committee, examining this very important matter.”

All McCain has left is his pathetic base, the Beltway media villagers ("If it's Sunday, it's John McCain") who still hang on his every word despite the fact that this old fool has been wrong about every major foreign policy issue during his time in Washington. it's a wonder why anyone gives a damn what John McCain thinks about anything.

Anderson Cooper pointed out in this "Keeping Them Honest" piece the other day just how disengenuous John McCain is when it comes to his double standard for Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.

Despite being a "Kremlinologist" i.e., a Soviet specialist, Condoleeza Rice has admitted "I never dreamed I would be the Soviet specialist in the White House at
the end of the Cold War, because I never dreamed there was going to be
an end to the Cold War," Rice said. "If you really do talk to people
honestly, no one really thought there was going to be an end to the Cold
War." Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice speaks at Bush School on significance of Cold War's end.

Plenty of analysts outside of the "cold warrior" group think foresaw that the Soviet Union's economy was unsustainable. There was also a humiliating defeat of the vaunted Soviet military and withdrawal from Afghanistan, and political reforms initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev that signaled an end to the Cold War.

The 9/11 attacks were inconceivable to Condoleeza Rice as well, despite the history of Kamikaze attacks in World War II, and terrorist plots reported in the 1990s. "I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use
an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," said
national security adviser Condoleeza Rice on May 16, 2002. 9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable – CBS News.

"All that I can tell you is that it was not in the Aug. 6 memo — using
planes as a weapon. And I do not remember any reports to us, a kind of
strategic warning that planes might be used as a weapon. In fact, there
were some reports done in '98 and '99. I think I was — I was certainly
not aware of them at the time that I spoke. . . ." Excerpts From Rice's Testimony Before Commission Investigating Sept. 11.

Condoleeza Rice was the head cheerleader for the false claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear weapon, to justify the invasion of iraq. Condoleeza Rice said on a Sunday television show in 2002,
“We know that he [Saddam Hussein] has the infrastructure, nuclear
scientists to make a nuclear weapon. The problem here is that there will
always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear
weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kerssler, a biographer of Condoleeza Rice.

No weapons of mass destruction, let alone nuclear weapons, were ever found.

In the most generous light, Condoleeza Rice was caught unaware  or was wrong about every major event in her professional career as a security analyst. In a less generous light, she knowingly mislead the American public using false intelligence to support the invasion of Iraq.  Despite her incompetence and wilfull deceit, a Republican controlled Senate confirmed Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State by a vote of 85 to 13, which were the most negative votes cast for a secretary of state in 180 years.

John McCain defended Rice as a "great American success story." As he says at the end of the video above,  "I thought some of the remarks aimed at her by my colleagues… challenged her integrity. .. I see this as some lingering bitterness over a tough campaign and I hope this dissipates soon."

Better take a hard look in the mirror, old man.

UPDATE: CBS News has obtained the CIA talking points given to Rice in preparation of her interview.

CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan says the talking points,
which were also given to members of the House intelligence committee,
make no reference to terrorism being a likely factor in the assault,
which left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.
[…]

The CIA's talking points read as follows: "The currently available
information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were
spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo and
evolved into a direct assault against the US diplomatic post in Benghazi
and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists
participated in the violent demonstrations."

In other words, what Susan Rice said is, almost word for word, exactly what the the intelligence
community believed as of the time of her interview.

John McCain owes Susan Rice and all Americans an apology for his unhinged and outrageous conduct.