Opinion

Rice steps aside

With key senators having lost faith in her, US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice took the path of least resistance Thursday, wisely withdrawing from consideration as President Obama’s next secretary of state.

“I didn’t want to see a confirmation process that was very prolonged, very politicized, very distracting and very disruptive,” Rice said in a statement.

Even though the president hadn’t yet officially nominated her, Rice was forced to yank her name for one simple reason: She’d long blown her own credibility.

Rice blitzed the Sunday talk shows five days after the Sept. 11 Benghazi embassy attacks that killed four Americans, including the US ambassador to Libya — wrongly absolving al Qaeda from involvement in the atrocity and egregiously declaring that the clearly preplanned attack was a “spontaneous” demonstration in response to an anti-Islam video made by an amateur California filmmaker.

She tried to deflect responsibility for this deception to the CIA and the national director of intelligence, but several Republican senators demanded that Rice be held accountable — and rightly so.

Sadly, throughout this period, too many of Rice’s Democratic supporters defended her by playing race and gender games.

But the absurdity of the notion that Rice was being targeted solely because she was black, a woman or both can be seen in one simple fact: The last four secretaries of state, stretching over three administrations, have been black, women or both — Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

All four were confirmed in overwhelminingly bipartisan US Senate votes.

If, as it seems, that streak is about to end — Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is now said to be Obama’s preferred pick for Foggy Bottom — Susan Rice has only herself to blame for this development.

Regardless, Rice’s decision to step aside should not mean the end of Benghazi questions.

She willingly brought misinformation to the public and paid the price.

The fact remains that the American people still deserve factual answers on every aspect of this incident — from the lack of security at the start, the failure to respond once the attack began and, finally, the conflicting stories after the fact.

The Obama administration needs to recognize that — Rice or no.

And act accordingly.