No Need To Kiss His Ring

U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice is scheduled to meet with a number of Senators today to discuss the Benghazi attack. We wonder why, when her only involvement was reading off of talking points prepared by the Director of National Intelligence on several Sunday gab fests.

Most aggravating is her scheduled meeting with bitter old clown Sen. John "McNasty" McCain, which he says she requested. This would have been a good time for the Administration to shun McNasty and let him twist in the wind of his reckless and borderline racist remarks about Rice, which he's trying to walk back. Here's the way McNasty put it:

"She asked to see me and I agreed to see her."

How nice of him to agree, and how obsequious of the Administration to offer her up again to a jerk like McNasty.

The Administration doesn't need McNasty's vote if Rice were to be the nominee for Secretary of State, so why not send him a message by denying him a "visit" from Rice? If this is a harbinger of more "negotiating with yourself" by the Obama Administration, maybe they, more than the Rethuglicans, need to remember who won the last election convincingly.

UPDATE: And now that she's met with McNasty and his amigos, they've renewed their criticism. Well played.

UPDATE DEUX: As usual, Charles P. Pierce um... pierces the ego bubbles involved in the charade:

"Rice, and acting CIA director Michael Morell, took time out of their busy schedules to go up to Capitol Hill and soothe the wounded fee-fees of John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and the inexplicable Kelly Ayotte, who has decided that the foreign-policy credentials she burnished keeping New Hampshire safe from General Burgoyne have made her a serious player, and who apparently has been adopted by Grumpypants and Huckleberry Closetcase because they can convince her that Susan Rice went to prom with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."

Hee-hee. Love the "Grumpypants" and "Huckleberry Closetcase," henceforth our new monikers for McCain and Graham.

McNasty's Personal War

Arizona's poster boy for Obama Derangement Syndrome Sen. John "McNasty" McCain's vendetta against President Obama is nothing new, and continually manifests itself in his mindless opposition to everything the President proposes. John Heilemann's piece in New York Magazine gives several reasons why U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice will be nominated and confirmed as the new Secretary of State, despite McNasty's hostile and objectively racist opposition. Here's number 4:

"4. Because McCain is being a jackass—and Obama is sick of it. Arguably more than any other national figure, the senior senator from Arizona is driven in every aspect of his public behavior by personal pique.... In the wake of the 2008 election, when he was soundly thumped by a Democratic challenger whom he regarded as a neophyte and a pretender whose experience and valor were no match for his own, McCain immediately shed all traces of mavericky independence and became one of Obama’s fiercest critics from the right."

He notes that the White House has long seen McNasty in this light, and wants the fight with him -- one that they rightly believe they'll win. Despite his constant appearances on Sunday talk shows, no one should take McNasty seriously, especially after his reckless and idiotic pick of snowbilly Sarah Palin for his running mate, and his very clear derangement over the man that beat him out of the Presidency.

BONUS: Newsweek/Daily Beast's Michael Tomasky adds his perspective on McNasty's growing irrelevance.