Hypocrisy Served With Rice
December 12, 2012 by John Myers
There is no limit to the hypocrisy of the Administration of President Barack Obama. The latest example is the “green” President’s candidate for secretary of state, Susan Rice.
The Democrats have been hypercritical of many Republicans for lining up against a black woman who is Obama’s choice to replace Hilary Clinton to oversee the U.S. Department of State. The race card has once again been tossed into the ring.
Congress’ top-ranking black lawmaker says he suspects Republicans are pillorying Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, because she is black.
Criticism of Rice began after her Sept. 16 comments regarding the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Rice said the attack began as a “spontaneous reaction” to an anti-Islamic video widely watched in the Muslim world that had also set off protests elsewhere.
Later, we learned that simply was not the truth. According to the State Department, the attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans was not some spontaneous outburst but a well-executed attack organized and launched by a terrorist cell of al-Qaida.
Many right-thinking Americans were outraged by Rice’s characterization of the Libyan attack, including Representative Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., who penned a letter to President Barack Obama saying Rice’s public comments after the Benghazi attack “caused irreparable damage to her credibility both at home and around the world.”
According to the letter, which was signed by 96 other Congressmen, Rice “either willfully or incompetently misled the American public in the Benghazi matter.”
It said replacing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with Rice as “the face of U.S. foreign policy” in Obama’s second term “would greatly undermine your desire to improve U.S. relations with the world and continue to build trust with the American people.”
Democrats Play The Race Card
Representative James Clyburn, D-S.C., along with other black Democrats, say upset Republicans continually use variations of the word “incompetent” to describe Rice, a Rhodes Scholar and former senior fellow at The Brookings Institution.
Clyburn, who is the third-ranking House Democrat, told The Washington Post that the Republicans’ choice to be critical of Rice’s remarks is one thing, but calling her incompetent amounts to using racial “code words.”
“We in the South know what that means,” he said. “I take offense when people use those words. I have a problem with them. They are going to disagree with Rice’s politics, but if they do, just say she’s wrong,” Clyburn told The Post. “When you apply the word ‘incompetent,’ that personalizes this thing, it goes beyond politics, because it’s about who and what she is — it’s character assassination.”
If you accept Clyburn’s logic, you can’t say a black person is incompetent. If you do, you are making a racist remark.
And Clyburn isn’t alone in his beliefs. Congressional Black Caucus Chair Marcia Fudge suggested Rice was targeted by the GOP because of her race as well as her sex. (The Democratic Representative from Ohio must have forgotten that the GOP nominated Sarah Palin for Vice President four years ago while a black woman, Condoleezza Rice, was George W. Bush’s Secretary of State.)
Last Wednesday, The Baltimore Sun weighed in the Republican challenge of Rice:
Approval of nominees to cabinet positions is by law the prerogative of the Senate. Certainly the president is entitled to his opinion as to who the nominee should be, but at the same time the Senate is required to state that he has made a mistake.
The president is not omnipotent; he is human in his choices which may involve political considerations and even bias. The Republican Party not only has the right but the duty to question his judgment on any of his cabinet selections, much less one that helps establish our foreign policy.
The Real And Very Rich Susan Rice
Before anybody starts feeling too sorry for Rice, it is important to understand what is really going on with the Democratic Party.
It is politics as usual for the Democrats to portray Obama, a former community organizer on the mean streets of Chicago, and the first lady as people who want nothing more than to help the downtrodden. This fairy tale ignores Michelle Obama’s J. Mendel cap-sleeve jacket that cost $6,800, her $540 Lanvin sneakers or the fact the first family vacations in the ultra-exclusive Martha’s Vineyard.
But the secretary of state, the Nation’s core representative to the world, should exclude politics. And the facts indicate that not only may Rice be incompetent but the Democrats are not being honest about her ability to be an honest broker — especially when it comes to the Mideast, which is in as much or more turmoil right now than it has ever been.
Rice would be the envy of anyone in the oil patch that I have ever met. This poor black woman holds tens of millions of dollars of petroleum stocks locked into a portfolio that makes her look a lot more like J.D. Rockefeller than Rosa Parks.
If this hypocrisy weren’t enough, much of Rice’s money is betting on the future of Canada’s oil sands.
On Earth reports that one-third of Rice’s personal wealth is invested in Canadian energy interests, much of it in Canada’s oil sands industry.
This seems a major conflict for Rice, who has royally screwed the pooch when it comes to reporting honestly about the Mideast.
As her confirmation looms, it is important to remember Arab sands sit atop two-thirds of the world’s conventional oil reserves. Ensuring security in that region won’t be a financial concern for Rice. She has most of her money locked up safely in 12 Canadian oil sands companies — companies that will benefit greatly from a Mideast meltdown.
Planes, Trains And Pipelines
A wonderful movie to watch during the holidays is “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” In a classic scene the uptight character Neal Page, played by Steve Martin, turns around while sitting on the freeway beside his newfound and troublesome companion Del Griffith, played by the late John Candy. The car that Page believes Griffith rented with his own money is on fire.
“You finally did it to yourself,” says Page laughing.*
In the case of Rice, the Democrats may have finally done it to themselves. Rice’s personal fortune is backing Canada’s oil sands, an industry that is of vital importance to the United States. And while African-Americans in the Democratic Party are enthusiastic to champion her as the future secretary of state, the Greens are not — and for good reason. Huffington Post reports:
(Rice) would oversee the Keystone XL pipeline proposal if appointed to lead the State Department. But the pipeline review isn’t the only environmental issue the next secretary of state will have to handle.
Clinton said earlier this year that energy is a top issue and that the U.S. is reshaping its foreign policy to reflect that. She created a new office within the State Department to deal with energy issues and launched an initiative to attack “short-lived climate pollutants.”
In a recent report, E&E’s Lisa Friedman called Rice’s climate change record “thin,” pointing out that she has done little to fight global warming (this woman can’t be all bad). Friedman quoted Frank Loy, who served as undersecretary of state for global affairs in the Administration of President Bill Clinton, as saying: “She doesn’t have much of a record on climate change issues because they haven’t been really the issues she felt were her job to promote.”
So if Rice is confirmed, there could be silver lining in a dark cloud, if only because she is one of the few Democrats who understand that the Mideast is not a trustworthy supplier of crude oil. Then again, she might be every bit as incompetent as some Republicans say. With the situation in the Mideast the way it is now, that is the last thing that America can endure.
Yours in good times and bad,
–John Myers
Editor, Myers’ Energy & Gold Report
* Note: It is fun to remember that in the movie “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” Steve Martin’s character only thought that John Candy’s character had rented the car. It turned out that Candy’s character used Martin’s character’s credit card to rent it.
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