Topic: NewsBusters
Matthew Balan writes in a Nov. 14 NewsBusters post:
Charlie Rose and Norah O'Donnell took turns hammering Senator John McCain on Wednesday's CBS This Morning over his promise to block any potential nomination of Susan Rice to be secretary of state. Rose grilled McCain after the Republican slammed Rice for blaming a "spontaneous" mob for the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi: "Didn't Susan Rice say that...all the information was not in, and she did not know everything there was to be known....what should she have said, based on what she knew at the moment?"
In fact, Rice did not blame a "spontaneous" mob for the Benghazi attack. In one of her TV appearances shortly after the attack, Rice said that "soon after that spontaneous protest began outside of our consulate in Benghazi, we believe that it looks like extremist elements, individuals, joined in that -- in that effort with heavy weapons of the sort that are, unfortunately, readily now available in Libya post-revolution. And that it spun from there into something much, much more violent." Rice made similar statements on the other Sunday shows she appeared on.
Rice never claimed the attack was solely a "spontaneous" act. McCain got it wrong, and Balan can't be bothered to correct him.
