Danette O'Neal, PhD

GOP senators criticize Susan Rice after meeting: Rice’s meeting with Sens. John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Kelly Ayotte on Capitol Hill came as the White House has signaled it may nominate Rice to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of State. McCain, R-Ariz., has said he may oppose her nomination because she should have known her statements on the Sept. 11 attack were false.

Rice said in a round of interviews days after the deadly incident that the attack may have emerged from a protest outside the consulate in response to an anti-Islam video produced in the USA. It was later learned there was no protest, and the attack was a well-organized terror plot likely timed for the anniversary of Sept. 11.

“The information she gave the American people was incorrect when she said that it was a spontaneous demonstration triggered by a

“The information she gave the American people was incorrect when she said that it was a spontaneous demonstration triggered by a hateful video,” McCain told reporters after the meeting with Rice. “The bottom line is that I’m more disturbed than I was before … about how four Americans died in Benghazi, Libya,” Graham said.

President Obama has defended Rice, who rose up through Democratic circles to advise presidential candidates on international issues. Under President Clinton, she weighed in on key foreign policy decisions, some of which remain controversial. White House spokesman Jay Carney wouldn’t say Monday whether the president will nominate Rice, but suggested that if he did, she would be a good candidate. Sen. John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, may also be in the running for the job, analysts say. “Ambassador Rice has done an excellent job at the United Nations and is highly qualified for any number of positions,” Carney said. Rice appeared on several Sunday talk shows on Sept. 16 and insisted the attack was prompted by the video. She recently said she was only relating the intelligence information she was handed by the White House, and Obama defended Rice, saying it was not her fault.