Team Trump on Susan Rice as Biden’s Running Mate
Team Trump on Susan Rice as Biden’s Running Mate
Next to Joe Biden, Susan Rice may be the most qualified person to lead our nation back from the utter disaster created by allowing Donald Trump to pretend to be our President. So what is this from the camp of the Liar-in-Chief? Trump’s aides and allies accuse Rice — without delving too deeply into the evidence — of helping cover up crimes for two of the president’s favorite foils, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, making her just the kind of “deep state” villain who could fire up his MAGA base. “She is absolutely our No. 1 draft pick,” a Trump campaign official said. I suspect Team Trump fears who Rice would be in a national campaign so they doing a classic head fake.
Don’t fall for it. Dr. Rice has committed no crimes and everyone (except for those MAGA hat wearers whose brains have rotted by now) knows it. What’s this? Four years earlier, she faced allegations that she misled Americans when she announced on national TV that the fatal attacks in Benghazi, Libya, occurred after spontaneous protests in response to an anti-Muslim video. That was determined to be inaccurate. On Monday night, Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host influential in Trump’s orbit, opened his show with a lengthy diatribe about Rice and her role in the 2012 Benghazi raid — strikingly similar to the attack Republicans lodged against Clinton in the 2016 race against Trump. This Benghazi BS is false so why highlight the rant from the racist liar Tucker Carlson? And unfortunately, this Politico story continues with one false allegation after another.
The real beef seems to be that Dr. Rice ably points out the many failures of the Trump Administration, which gets Team Trump all “energized”. So what? Democrats are supposed to cut and run when Team Trump goes off on one of their patented attack campaigns? Give me a break. The Republican rants about the lack of resources for our ambassadors in Benghazi were always pure hypocrisy Leahy said: “House Republicans have wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on a partisan exercise. For that, and for blaming the Administration for failing to protect our diplomats, without acknowledging their own efforts to slash resources for embassy security, is pure, distilled hypocrisy.”
BEFORE BENGHAZI: After Republicans took over the House in January 2011 — before the Benghazi attack — they proposed deep cuts for U.S. embassy operations and State Department programs across the board, including for diplomatic and embassy facility security. The House Republican Appropriations Committee cut $1 billion from the embassy security budget proposed by the Obama Administration in the two years prior to the Benghazi attack The Republican attacks back then were based on lies to shift responsibility from their own failures. Let the Republicans try this again and just keep reminding people about the true reasons for our current failures – the dishonesty and incompetence of Team Trump.
I have nothing against Rice, but her pick would be a Tim Kaine moment.
She brings absolutely nothing in terms of bringing voters out.
Which is the only thing that should matter to Biden.
I think Rice is a great diplomat. Incredibly talented a great public servant smart as a whip. But her pick would indeed be just the thing these asshole are hoping for to breathe new life into their dead in the water campaign. It isn’t just them it is the press who would be their willing accomplices in this. It would be three months of resurrecting the mountain of bullshit they hurried Clinton in. Is any of it true? Of course not. Does it matter? Of course not. It will suck the oxygen out of the discourse and that is what they are praying for. I still think Biden could win under these circumstances but it would turn a drubbing into a nail biter. If Joe feels making this stand is worth the heart attacks I guess we all better buckle up. But I hope not. There is a safer place for Dr. Rice in the cabinet or as National Security Advisor. I am sure she can play a major role in the upcoming administration. But serving as an outsized target really isn’t the best use of her time.
Is Karen Bass the least objectionable pick?
Progressives Are Rallying Behind Karen Bass for VP
via @thenation – August 7
(On the other hand…)
(The following is from Fox
News, so what would
you expect?)
“I’m not a socialist. I’m not a communist. I’ve belonged to one party my entire life and that’s the Democratic Party and I’m a Christian,” Bass told NBC News in an interview published Monday.
KAREN BASS, ON BIDEN VP SHORTLIST, SCRAMBLES TO EXPLAIN REMARKS ON CASTRO, SCIENTOLOGY
Bass is widely reported to be on Biden’s running mate shortlist, but as her odds and profile have risen in recent weeks, so has the media scrutiny into her past — particularly concerning her relationship with Cuba.
Bass traveled to Cuba in 1973 with an organization called the Venceremos Brigade, a joint venture between the Castro regime and left-wing U.S. groups that organized trips for Americans to the country. During that trip, she went to see Fidel Castro speak and, in 2016, when the dictator died, she sparked controversy by referring to him as “commandante en jefe” (commander in chief) and calling his death a “great loss to the people of Cuba.” …
(The GOP would prefer John Roberts as Biden’s VP choice.)
California progressives want …
SF Chronicle – July 19
Biden has committed to picking a female running mate. (Karen) Bass, who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, has reportedly joined (Kamala) Harris on his short list. …
Bass told the Sacramento Press Club last week that she will do “whatever it takes” to help Biden, including putting stamps on mailers at his headquarters. While she said she trusts Biden to make the right choice, she said it is important to pick a woman of color.
“I think it would be very important, especially at this moment in our country … when we have a president who has been so divisive and has used race regularly, especially when he is in a hot spot,” Bass said. …
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was the top pick of members of the Progressive Democrats of America and young people surveyed in a new poll by GenForward, a nonpartisan organization that works in affiliation with the University of Chicago. Harris finished behind Warren in both surveys. …
I doubt that Rice would be the best candidate in these circumstances, but just to be clear, Rice did not “announce” anything in those TV appearances several days after the attack. She could not have possibly tried harder to clarify that anything she said was tentative and was based on the best information available at that early stage of the investigation. She was accused of trying to deflect blame from al qaeda, but to Bob Schieffer on CBS that Sunday, in response to a direct question she expressly said that it could have been inspired by, supported by or directly conducted by al qaeda. Progressive commentators, including Rachel Meadow and Chris Hayes on MSNBC, effectively threw her under the bus by tacitly accepting the narrative that her statements were misleading. There was nothing misleading about them whatsoever. She was 100% crystal clear.