By: Evan Bell, BCXII Staff Writer

Ever since the September 11 attack on the Benghazi consulate in Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and 3 others, Republicans rightly have been critical of the information that the President and his White House have released concerning the attack. It is important to keep those in power in check, and certainly, there was a failure to provide adequate security for the consulate.

However, the CIA and FBI released talking points to Ambassador Rice and members of Congress immediately after the incident with what information they knew at that time, which was very little. The complete story of what happened at the consulate could not be determined by the FBI more than 2 weeks after the attack because it was too dangerous for the FBI to get access to the site. Whatever talking points they could put together would have had to be incomplete at the time Susan Rice went onto the Sunday talk shows on Sept. 16 because the FBI and CIA didn’t have access to the consulate.

This begs the question: So, why are GOP senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John McCain of Arizona, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, and Susan Collins of Maine going after Susan Rice?

Some political commentators think it’s because they want to stop her potential nomination as Secretary of State. They believe the GOP senators want to make her nomination in the Senate so untenable that President Obama will pick John Kerry as Secretary of State, opening up a vacant Senate seat in Massachusetts, echoing the possibility that a Republican again could win the seat, after Senator Scott Brown took Ted Kennedy’s old seat in January 2010. Some Republicans, such as Jon Huntsman, believe the criticism of Rice is overblown. Some Democrats believe the opposition to Rice as a possible Secretary of State is race-based. Still, Republicans are combatting that idea by noting that George W. Bush nominated 2 African-Americans to that same post, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, during his presidency.