What Comes Out ......

Back in the Dark Ages of Education when I was attending Mt Carmel High School in Chicago, we had a sports opponent in the Catholic League in a school by the name of Brother Rice.  (Don't ask me who Brother Rice was, as I had and have no idea.)  Along with our standard repertoire of cheers during such sporting events, we had a special special one for this particular opponent which went: "What comes out of China man's ass?  Rice!  Rice!  Rice!"  (Yes I know that such a cheer is politically incorrect, then and now, but we were high school kids living in an age 40 years ago when being PC was far less important.  I use it now only to illustrate a point, which I could get to if I wasn't so busy explaining my prior offensive behavior to you here.)

Of course it was stupid and politically incorrect, but it served its purpose of infuriating the other team and distracting them from more important issues going on around them.  You know, like the game ....

Today we have our own 'Rice' issue going on surrounding UN Ambassador Susan Rice and the talking points she used on five Sunday talk shows soon after the attack on our Consulate in Benghazi.  For myself, I must continue to say,  "Who cares who gave Ambassador Rice her talking points, who changed them, and why she repeated them on each successive show?"  Maybe she was just being a team player?  Maybe she's a self-serving bureaucrat trying to claw her way up the ladder in the State Department?  Maybe she's a simple-minded fool or drank so much of the Kool-Aid that she would believe anything handed to her from the right source?  

Speaking of who cares, who cares if Republican Senators believe her?  Who cares if they're more confused after questioning her than before?  (Though I would have to say that if this is actually the case, these guys might better spend some of their time watching "NCIS", "CSI", or "Law and Order" as a way of improving their interrogation skills.)  What I can't help but ask myself is why they and we are distracting ourselves with 'Rice Cheers' questions about what she said; as if it mattered then or now in the greater scheme of the game?

The real question in fact is why, in an area of obvious unrest, the Libyan US Embassy in Tripoli wasn't well-staffed enough to be able to send a large protection team of its own down to support the AMBASSADOR (its most important functionary) at the consulate in Benghazi?  Why did we not add staff or beef up the defences of the compound after two prior attacks on it?  Why did we stay after both the British Embassy and the Red Cross had left the area, considering it too dangerous?  Why did they pull a military protection team deployed to Libya specifically for the embassy's protection out a month before the attack?  Why were there apparently no backup teams (military or private security) deployed in an area crawling with US bases and ships, to assist during a running seven hour battle?  Even if things had settled down after the initial assault and fire (and during which the Ambassador was evidently killed), why wasn't significant fire support team immediately sent to the area for no other reason than to secure the Consulate and Embassy (which are by international treaty, US territory); and to discover where and in what condition the Ambassador was?

For some reason however, we have become distracted by the meaningless to care more about who was in the circle and what rules were used for the government official game of 'Telephone' being played in Washington DC, who the head of the CIA was sleeping with that he shouldn't have, why some military base social climber is getting nasty emails from that CIA head's mistress, and of course the in and outs of the gross misstatements of Ambassador Rice.  Four people (including an ambassador) were killed! 

With all of the other things that we don't know, we should at least recognize that the events surrounding Susan Rice are less than a side-show unless and until the actual attempt is made by the President to nominate her for higher office.  The entire Rice episode, like that of my high school days, is a distraction to larger events unfolding, and to a rather nasty foreign policy failure on the part of the current Administration on which no one seems to be able to keep their eye on the ball.  So if you'll pardon my language, I know what comes out of a China man's ass ... rice.  I also know what comes out of the nonsense of Ambassador Rice where the real story of Benghazi lies ... NOTHING.