By Tracy Connor, NBC News
Embattled U.N. envoy Susan Rice is dropping out of the running to be the next secretary of state after months of criticism over her Benghazi comments.
“Today, I made the decision that it was the best thing for our country, for the American people that I not continue to be considered by the president for nomination of secretary of state,” Rice told NBC’s Brian Williams.
“I didn’t want to see a confirmation process that was very prolonged, very politicized, very distracting and very disruptive because there are so many things we need to get done as a country and the first several months of a second term president’s agenda is really the opportunity to get the crucial things done.”
Rice noted that President Obama’s second-term agenda included “comprehensive immigration reform, balanced deficit reduction, job creation.”
She added, “And to the extent that my nomination could have delayed or distracted or deflected or maybe even some of these priorities impossible to achieve, I didn’t want that and I much prefer to keep doing what I’m doing which is a job I love at the United Nations.”
The full interview with Rice will air on tonight’s “Rock Center With Brian Williams” at 10p/9c. Excerpts will also be broadcast on Nightly News at 6:30 pm ET.
Obama said in a statement that he accepted her decision and regretted “the unfair and misleading attacks” on Rice, who was considered a front-runner to replace Hillary Clinton as the nation’s top foreign policy official.
Criticism over remarks
Rice has been under intense fire from Republicans for initially characterizing the Sept. 11 assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, as a spur-of-the-moment response to a crude anti-Muslim film.
“What happened in Benghazi was in fact initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo, almost a copycat of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, which were prompted, of course, by the video,” Rice said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” five days after the attack.
“Opportunistic extremist elements came to the consulate as this was unfolding. They came with heavy weapons, which unfortunately are readily available in post-revolutionary Libya, and it escalated into a much more violent episode.”
As more details emerged suggesting it was a premeditated terrorist action, GOP critics accused Rice of misleading the public at the height of the presidential campaign.
She countered that she went with the best information available about the attack, in which Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed.
“I relied solely and squarely on the information provided to me by the intelligence community. I made clear that the information was preliminary and that our investigations would give us the definitive answers,” she said on Nov. 21 at the United Nations.
By then, Obama had already expressed strong support for Rice, warning Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to stop slamming her and vowing to block her confirmation.
“They should go after me,” he said at his first press conference after his re-election.
Despite a series of closed-door meeting with Capitol Hill lawmakers to drum up support, Rice continued to face questions from senators key to her confirmation.
After a Nov. 28 sitdown with Rice, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she couldn’t yet endorse the veteran diplomat and raised a new point of concern: her role in protecting American embassies in Kenya and Nairobi that were bombed by terrorists in 1998.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) suggested Rice was seen as too much of an Obama loyalist and the GOP preferred “someone of independence.”
Attack on critics
In her resignation letter to Obama, Rice took aim at her GOP critics.
“The position of secretary of state should never be politicized,” she wrote.
“As someone who grew up in an era of comparative bipartisanship and as a sitting U.S. national security official who has served in two U.S. Administrations, I’m saddened that we have reached this point, even before you have decided whom to nominate. We cannot afford such an irresponsible distraction from the most pressing issues facing the American people.”
Obama praised Rice as “an extraordinarily capable, patriotic, and passionate public servant.”
“While I deeply regret the unfair and misleading attacks on Susan Rice in recent weeks, her decision demonstrates the strength of her character, and an admirable commitment to rise above the politics of the moment to put our national interests first.”
McCain and Graham, among Rice’s loudest critics, said they would continue to press the administration on Benghazi.
“I respect Ambassador Rice’s decision,” Graham said in a statement. “President Obama has many talented people to choose from to serve as our next secretary of state.”
The withdrawal leaves Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) as a possible candidate for the job, and Republicans have said he would have a smoother run.
"I think John Kerry would be an excellent appointment and would be easily confirmed by his colleagues," Collins said last month.
Rice, 48, has been the United States’ permanent representative to the United Nations since 2009, after serving as a senior advisor to the Obama campaign, working at the Brookings Institution and holding other diplomatic and national security positions dating back to 1993.
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Susan Rice is a little LIAR. Other than that she's totally qualified to be Secretary of State.
Rice, Obama and everyone else in the Fed Gov are lairs. Read this link and then tell me they are not. All the facts are there and people are still sticking their heads in the sand. IDIOTS
If we must have a choice between Kerry and Rice, I prefer the lesser of the two evils - Rice. Doesn't Obama have a qualified candidate within the democratic rank?
at least she is a capitalist pig and not a commie one, she owned gobs of stock in Trans Canada, and would have approved the pipeline, Kerry will just go to his yaught, and hide his taxes.
Both are more qualified for this position than ROMNEY was for the Presidency :)
His percentage of quality appts stop and and end with Panetta, and Petraeus and both of them have been corrupted or stomped on. you thi nk the guy that has Van Jones in his admin has competent people?
Have you noticed that whenever the left and the media cannot defend the actions of the Obama administration or its appointees they fall back on the claim of racism! It gets pretty old but the bright side is you know the debate is over and they lost.
Lol It's all a cover up friend. Check this out you will be blown away. Link
Gotta love the cons always playing the poor victim of liberalism card over and over
It's a wonder how they ever made it this far in life
Hmm..all of you throwing stones at this Rice, what about Condalisa Rice, you think she honestly believe there were WMDs in Iraq. She back up Bush at every turn and didn't seem to formulate any thoughts of her own.
Any of you servered in the Military or Intelligence community?? She gave the best possible answer at the time, the dust had not even settled to ge an investigation team in and there were attacks going on all over the middle east after that stupid video hit the the internet.
She didn't mislead anyone, she gave her thoughts and opinion formulated on the information given to her. All of you people think she was their in person, maybe even interviewed the attackers??? Ya she initially got it wrong and she came back and said she was wrong, it was a premeditated attack, but the terrorist also waited for the most opportune time to carry out the attack with the misdirection that the video and other attacks caused. Keep our intelligence machines a step off for a moment.....ITS CALLED WARFARE AND TACTICS and the attackers used them to their advantage here.
One comment even went so far as to think that it got Obama Elected....hmmm...no, just the lack of a better alternative, you cant blame Obama for a terrorist attack maybe its his fault Sandy hit and a superstorm covered New England...but it is Romney's fault for telling Ohio that Obama was moving the Jeep factory to China....What it came down to is "the devil you know vs the devil you don't"....
kill allof the white people! jamie Foxx!
You are a racist!!!!!!!!!!!!
This solidifies two things, as we that are not kool aid drunkards knew. Obama is afraid of Benghazi facts, coming out, and he is a a coward of a boss. He has thrown every single controversial person under his bus from Jeremiah Wright to Susan Rice. Any quality boss, would not accept her withdrawal if she, he and Bengahzi were clean. Of course Benghazi is not clean and Obama is not a quality boss nor person. He is a lying corrupt incompetent that is the quintessial Narcissist.
Again. Read this interview. VERY enlightening.
Obama 2012, it is a done deal. When your very foundation is formed by untruth's the truth shall forever evade you. Say what you wish but the truth prevails. I can see how there will be those who will openly receive the mark of the beast. Thanks to Adonai that the majority in this country understands the difference. The likes of John McCain, K Ayotte and Graham will soon pass away. They and others like them are quickly becoming the minority, literal relics of the past and their voices will soon go unheard. Consider this, 4 more years!!!
@Y Truth
Who are you... Jeremiah Wright?
@modgal
Small minded one it is you who are on the right. As I seriously doubt that you know Jeremiah Wright or anyone else whom you speak of in this thread. Words are powerful things, they actually have the power of creation with well being as well as desecration through demeaning terms. Which path have you chosen?
Any liberal who voted for Obama should have seen this avalanche coming.
It is only the beginning.
What happened to intelligent Americans in the past few years I do not know.
But it disturbs me.
The fiscal cliff is nothing compared to what liberals will do in the spending category.
Oh, and I know it won't be for military, or for any other cause that we should be concerned with.
It will be to feed the slackers who voted liberal.
I hope you are all happy when we are a second rate nation and the feed bag runs empty.
All Americans that voted for Obama saw the avalanche coming from the FAILURES of the BUSH administration and getting us into this mess in the first place. After all, adding 5 TRILLION to the deficit for a whopping total of 11 TRILLION, keeping corporate tax credits for corporations that move jobs to other countries, combined with 2 foreign wars we couldn't pay for, corporate welfare, military welfare ($400.00 toilet seats) and then some wasn't enough.
They told us it was the ECONOMY, but in the 112th congress, the had bills on abortion, religion, telling us who we could marry and what our family values should be. Then they tried to insult our intelligence on making LEGITIMATE RAPE acceptable.
The GOP made us a second rate nation.. and their 'trickle down economics' is a dismal failure
Your boy Clinton got us into the mess in the first place by signing the "Clinton
home for every American act without credit or income".
How soon you libs forget.
Yawn.... Clinton left BUSH a surplus that was spent and then some.. Don't say there wasn't one either, your conservative RIGHTIES Santorum and Gingrich BOTH took credit for it.
Bush = EPIC Failure.
P.S. At least BUSH wasn't stupid enough either to PUSH legitimate rape as normal.
My God, look at all the sad hateful Right Wingnuts spewing vitriol into a mirror. We were a great country once, Fox News and the Corporate Media machine have successfully forged a generation of lost, uneducated, angry soul-less hypocrites distracted from being Good Americans. Obama is just a man, what Reich Wingers hate is everything and everyone. The Rich that own this country succeeded in a Divide and Conquer plan.
Republicans Condoleezza Rice (66th secretary of state) and Colin Powell (65th Secretary of state) relied on credible faulty intelligence that got the US into a protracted war with Iraq. But the Republicans did with them as the do with all of their Republican Brethren, they circle the wagons and protect them.
Fast forward to another Rice (a potential Secretary of State). The weak kneed democrat p u s s i e s do what they always do, throw their own under the bus. The the totally full of -s h i t- Republicans do what they always do, control the messages with a barrage of lies and deception to sway public opinion. You know, tell a lie enough and it becomes the truth.
The Republican agenda in this is to make Kerry's seat vacant. This will create an opportunity to put one of their Republican -a s s-holes in that seat.
The Democrat agenda is to continue being covert bigots. They really don't want another black person in charge of anything. Hell, a lot of Democrats sided with 60% of white people to vote Obama out of office. Besides, Rice is too rich and she is black.
Republicans are totally full of -s h i t-
Democrats are d i c k l e s s wonders
What politics? Liberals own the Whitehouse AND the Senate, if it was Republicans it would have taken all of 5 minutes. On top of it all Liberals own all but one news media outlet so how could they possibly screw this up?
This is like watching the Keystone cops honestly.
HEY RICE, US CONSERVATIVES HEAR YA. lol :)
hXXp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS7nqwGt4-I
You're an ass just the rest of the republican party. They're out to destroy us
I'm a Republican and I love Susan Rice. Our nitpicking Republican politicians should be ashamed of themselves.
If we had more republicans with non-partisan thinking like you, think of how great we could be. I commend you for this comment!
I'm a moderate democrat and think she is unqualified.
sure progressive one the murder of 4 in Benghazi due to obama's incompetency is ther fault of a you tube video and the " teabaggers" as you can people. you are the quinessial govt educated lemming that Obama, Stalin and Lenin depend on.
And you exhibit the intellectual capacity of a door knob. Sorry, was that too rude? OK, you exhibit the intellectual capacity of a Tea Bagger. No, wait, that was worse. Here it is, you exhibit the intellectual capacity of a poorly educated, selfish, dim wit. That's it...
This is a story that exposes that the good folks drop out of the mud pit and the ones left are the creeps we get to run the country. The Republican Party is looking more and more like a bully whose wife just ran off with the taxi cab driver.
Politicized process? So unlike the Secretary of State position. She obviously made the right choice.
It is just a shame that she could not have kicked McCain in the nuts as she left the stage. Of course, it would be difficult since his scrotum is hanging between his eyes.
She got railroaded with poor intelligence information just like Colin Powell did when he was Sec. of Defense. He got poor info on weapons of mass destruction and before you knew he was gone. Intelligence information is only as good as the source from which it came! She was not at fault. And as far as John McCain goes, he should be hung by his cojones for causing this terrible thing. He's too old to even know what he's doing. He to go along with a boot in the ass of Boner, Graham, and McConnell. Susan Rice would have been great and the republicans are digging themselves deeper into a hole of hate. When 2016 comes around, if they keep this up, they won't win a thing....and that'll be just fine with me!
If the mouth is moving they are lying.
Susan Rice withdraws from consideration as secretary of state because of John McCain
There is just no way that Obama would have let Rice withdraw from consideration for Sec of State unless he thought she would do more harm during the confirmation process So he cut his losses and asked her to withdraw.
Think about it would she withdraw if Obama told her to stay and fight....??
That is exactly why she withdrew because she would have had to answer tough questions during the confirmation hearing, including who ask her to lie and who gave her the talking points!
Like fast and furious this thing more then likely leads straight to the White House and I for one is sick of being lied to by our own government who we are suppose to respect and trust...What has happen to the good old USA ??...In a year from now we won't recognize America
I believe that Ms. Rice made a wise decision. The Republicans never stop. They could not win the election so what more can they do; try and tear a strong African-American woman down. You see when people can not have total control they do whatever (they are really like kids) don't get me wrong everyone wants to know what really happened in Benghazi. You can only deliver the message that was sent to you. I am proud of Ms. Rice. I guess McCain and Graham are the happiest of the Repubs because they were the main voices.
Very politicized process?? What did she expect? She was running for a political post!
Politicized? How about mere incompetence for shooting off your mouth before you had the correct facts?