Messing with McCain-Graham's mind

Politico:

McCain and Graham appeared to temper their criticism of Rice over the weekend, but the hour-and-a-half long meeting Tuesday only seemed to reignite their fury.

My guess? Susan Rice baited them. She entered this morning's meeting on an aggressive, combative footing and never relented. Expecting little but obedient back-shuffling from a mere U.N. ambassador, nothing would steam the august good old boys of John McCain and Lindsey Graham more than a young black woman's suggestion that these two almighty U.S. senators simply shove and then privately store their raving paranoia in an unlit, malodorous place.

Rice was baiting them. And McCain and Graham were too damn dumb to perceive it. That's my guess.

***

p.s.: I suppose in this increasingly bizarre case I should add what seems like the obvious, which I'm generally loathe to do.

By now, the White House must be loving this. There appear to be sufficient votes in the Senate to confirm Rice as secretary of state; meanwhile McCain and Graham (and Ayotte) are only further contaminating the GOP brand. Hence the longer they embarrass themselves, the stronger the WH's position becomes. In short, Rice had good reason for doing what I suspect she did.

Comments

[DerFarm]

whaddaya want to bet she did it under orders?

Old, bitter white guys can't see the forest for the trees.

[Turgidson]

This whole spectacle is just ridiculous. At bottom, it's basically just McCain and Graham having a public hissy fit about the fact that Obama has taken foreign policy away from the GOP as a campaign advantage. And Benghazi is the best bone they've been thrown to fight back.

Funny. I don't remember these warmongering dipshits having much to say when it became blindingly obvious that the Bush administration had lied us into Iraq, invaded with too few troops, and on and on and on. Nor do I remember this kind of ridiculous grandstanding witchhunt when we tried to figure out how 9-11 happened.

Huh, funny that.

[Peter G]

Perhaps she made a remark about the strong correlation between intelligence and academic achievement.

[mdblanche]

Conveniently, Obama now looks like he has to go all in on Rice or else it will look like he's backing down. Sorry, John, we know you've been a good soldier and it's your turn to be Secretary of State, but now this has happened to come up so it looks like you're stuck in that Senate seat Scott Brown had his eye on.

[Rich (In Name Only) in Reno]

Any thoughts on Rachel Maddow's theory that this is all just a shadow play to mask the Republican's real motive; getting John Kerry into the Cabinet and out of the Senate, so they can force a special election in Massachusetts for his Senate seat, get Scott Brown back in, and thus obtain a bit more leverage in the Senate?