Why Oh Why Did Susan Rice Become a Republican Punching Bag?

Andrew Harrer/DPA via ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Susan Rice, the right’s favorite new¹ punching bag over the past few years, talks about her experience of continuing to be a punching bag even after she left government service:

I ask Rice why she thinks she became a target. She laughs, sort of. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. What do you think?”

I mention Benghazi, the moment when much of the right’s base became aware of Rice’s existence. “Does it start there?” she asks. She is not a person given to agitation, but here, Rice’s focus sharpens — she looks at me more directly, with heightened intensity. “And why me? Why not Jay Carney, for example, who was then our press secretary, who stood up more?”

Carney isn’t an African-American woman, of course….I point out that she has a reputation for being tough, and a strong-willed woman who seems sure of herself makes a certain kind of man nervous.

“Let me just put it this way,” she says. “I do not leap to the simple explanation that it’s only about race and gender. I’m trying to keep my theories to myself until I’m ready to come out with them. It’s not because I don’t have any.”

Well, I for one will be eager to hear her theories once Rice decides she’s ready. Rice is certainly the most unfairly maligned public servant of the past few years, all because she went on TV and told the truth about Benghazi. That was her real sin, of course.³

And as long as we’re on the subject, I’ll just take this opportunity to add that progressives didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory while Rice was being endlessly slandered by conservatives over Benghazi. For weeks they mostly held their tongues or damned her with faint praise (“she probably shouldn’t have mentioned the video….”). But Rice literally did nothing wrong. Zero. On her infamous Sunday show appearances, she told the absolute truth as it was then understood by the intelligence community. This was, unfortunately, a precursor to progressives also failing to aggressively defend Hillary Clinton over her emails. Why? I suppose because lots of progressives were afraid there might be a smoking gun somewhere and didn’t want to risk coming strongly to her defense and then looking foolish. Cowards. In the end, of course, we eventually learned that Clinton had also done literally nothing wrong and the FBI never had even a weak case against her.

¹As opposed to favorite longtime punching bags Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.²

²Both of whom are also women. Kinda makes you think, doesn’t it?

³Aside from being female and black, that is.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate