Appropriate response considering dangerous circumstances

The continued attack on the qualifications of U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice and her performance on the Sunday talk shows over the Benghazi consulate assault has reached the point of nauseating theater [“U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice defends Benghazi remarks,” seattletimes.com, Nov. 21].

Sen. John McCain, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Kelly Ayotte certainly know better. The opinions and documents of the intelligence communities are not labeled “secret” for any idle reason. The pundits and the public do not need to have firsthand knowledge of every event that we find ourselves in.

Clearly, the events as reported were moving targets and evolving as the intelligence community learned more about the embassy attack. There was the legitimate concern that to tip our hand in detail would jeopardize on-scene intelligence sources and unnecessarily create further risks for the very diplomats and U.S. citizens that these foaming-at-the-mouth Republican senators claim to be protecting.

To cautiously release information and have Rice deliver a statement that was crafted in collaboration with the entire intelligence community was in fact the proper, prudent action to take under the circumstances.
If McCain, Graham and Ayotte do not understand this dynamic, then they have no business representing the citizens of this Country and they should resign and leave the adults to run the show.

— Richard McNamara, Seahurst