But so far right-wingers claiming that Clinton somehow faked her concussion have gone virtually unchallenged on Fox News and right-wing sites like Newsbusters and the Daily Caller. Everyone from Charles Krauthammer to Sean Hannity to Laura Ingraham and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton have gotten into the act. Even after reports that Clinton also suffered a dangerous blood clot between her brain and skull, Bolton not only failed to apologize, he suggested that she was dodging Benghazi questions in order to protect her 2016 chances.

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The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee report said the White House was only responsible for a minor change. Some Republicans had questioned whether the presidential staff rewrote the talking points for political reasons.

The committee, headed by independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, also said the director of national intelligence has been stonewalling the panel in holding back a promised timeline of the talking point changes.

U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the Sept. 11 attack. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said she used the talking points to say in television interviews on Sept. 16 that it may have been a protest that got out of hand.

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The first ran for 16 years, from early 1992, when her husband survived a wave of scandals and emerged as the Democratic nominee for president, and early 2008, when Hillary fell hopelessly behind Barack Obama in their delegate race. For all of that time, Hillary and Bill were the faces of their party and, consequently, faced a relentless, daily, over-the-top assault from the GOP. The precise nature of the attacks differed, but broadly speaking, the Clintons were treated by the right exactly how Barack Obama has been for the past four years.

Which is no coincidence, because the turning point in the right’s relationship with Bill and Hillary came at the precise moment when it became clear there’d be no Clinton restoration in ’08. Suddenly, there was no day-to-day incentive for conservatives to portray them as The Worst Thing Ever To Happen To American Politics. But there was real incentive for the right to begin giving Obama the Clinton treatment, which it's been doing ever since. In the revised right-wing narrative, Bill and Hillary became symbols of a bygone era of Democratic pragmatism and cooperation – “good” Democrats whose legacy Obama was routinely tarnishing with his radical partisan warfare.

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An administration official said Eric Boswell, the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, Charlene Lamb, the deputy assistant secretary responsible for embassy security, and an unnamed official with the Bureau of Near East Affairs, had stepped down. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss personnel matters publicly.

The report said poor leadership in both bureaus left the post underprotected.

"Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus" resulted in a security level that was "inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place," according to the report released late Tuesday by the independent Accountability Review Board.

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The leaders of an independent panel issued the scathing assessment in a review that, according to Reuters, found "leadership and management" deficiencies in the department and "real confusion" in Washington and in the field over who could — and should — have made decisions involving security.

The findings of the Accountability Review Board, some of which are classified and will only be heard behind closed doors before the House and Senate foreign affairs committees, may taint the four-year tenure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Reuters wrote.

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"Systematic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place," the panel said.

The report singled out the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the Bureau of Near East Affairs for criticism, saying there appeared to be a lack of cooperation and confusion over protection at the mission in Benghazi, a city in Eastern Libya that was relatively lawless after the revolution that toppled Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi.

Despite those failures, the Accountability Review Board determined that no individual officials ignored or violated their duties and recommended no disciplinary action now. But it also said poor performance by senior managers should be grounds for disciplinary recommendations in the future.

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"If nominated, I am now convinced that the confirmation process would be lengthy, disruptive and costly -- to you and to our most pressing national and international priorities," Rice wrote in a letter to President Obama, NBC News first reported. "That trade-off is simply not worth it to our country ... Therefore, I respectfully request that you no longer consider my candidacy at this time."

"The position of Secretary of State should never be politicized," Rice continued. "As someone who grew up in an era of comparative bipartisanship and as a sitting U.S. national security official who has served in two U.S. Administrations, I am saddened that we have reached this point, even before you have decided whom to nominate. We cannot afford such an irresponsible distraction from the most pressing issues facing the American people."

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"I wouldn't lie to you. I see that we're covering Benghazi a lot, and I think that should be something that we're asking about. We've had the proper emphasis. But I would not be so deluded to say that some of our shows, some of our commentators, have covered it more than it needed to be covered," he told the AP.

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No, that's not today! That was eight years ago when George W. Bush appointed his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to be the nation’s top diplomat a week after winning reelection.

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Susan Rice has done a "great" job as U.N. ambassador without explicitly endorsing Rice to be her successor.

Updated 4:36 p.m.:

In a subsequent interview with MSNBC, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R.-N.H., agrees with Senator Collins that the 1998 embassy bombing "raised some very important questions" about Susan Rice's fitness for Secretary of State. What are those questions? Ayotte's not sure:

As I understand it, you know, Senator Collins raised the questions about what her role was there. she has asked for answers about what her role was with respect to embassy security and embassy security requests that were made prior to those two -- the attacks on our embassies there and so I don't know that those questions have been answered but I think they're important questions that were raised by Senator Collins and I certainly respect her experience in this area.

Neither senator addressed why the embassy bombings are of greater concern now than there were in 2009 during her honeymoon nomination process to be U.N. ambassador. According to a Nexis search, Collins had zero to say at the time about Rice being in a sensitive, high profile foreign policy position.

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“MSNBC invited me [to appear], but I said, ‘You’re just like Fox, but not as good at it.’ They wrote back and said, ‘Thank you for your candor,’” Ricks told the Washington Post.

Ricks, a Pulitzer Prize winning defense reporter, appeared on Fox News earlier this week to discuss Benghazi, and told host Jon Scott that the network had "hyped" the controversy surrounding Susan Rice, “partly because Fox was operating as a wing of the Republican Party.” The interview was abruptly cut short.

Fox News brass later claimed that Ricks had apologized; Ricks maintains he did not.

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Ricks, a Pulitzer-winning defense reporter, appeared on the network to discuss Benghazi, and called out Fox News for its "hyped" coverage of the attacks, "partly because Fox was operating as a wing of the Republican Party.”

Michael Clemente, executive vice president at Fox News, told the Hollywood Reporter that Ricks apologized for the appearance. “When Mr. Ricks ignored the anchor’s question, it became clear that his goal was to bring attention to himself -- and his book," Clemente said. "He apologized in our offices afterward but doesn’t have the strength of character to do that publicly."

"Please ask Mr. Clemente what the words of my supposed apology were. I'd be interested to know," Ricks told the Reporter in response. "Frankly, I don't remember any such apology."

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But, according to the poll, only 40 percent of those surveyed say that they believe the Obama Administration purposely misled the public. "Fifty-four percent think those inaccurate statements reflected what the White House believed to be true at the time," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

48 percent of respondents also said that they believe the attack could have been prevented.

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The discussions, beginning Tuesday, will focus on her much-maligned explanations of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, officials said, but she's also clearly auditioning for America's top diplomatic job.

Despite lingering questions over her comments five days after the Benghazi attack, Rice has emerged as the front-runner on a short list of candidates to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton, with Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., seen as her closest alternative. But despite a softening of Republican opposition to Rice, she still has work to do to ensure that enough GOP senators are willing to back her potential nomination.

Rice's series of meetings on Capitol Hill this week will therefore be a critical test both for Republicans, who will decide whether they can support her, and the administration, which must gauge whether Rice has enough support to merit a nomination. According to congressional aides and administration officials, Rice is expected to meet with small groups of lawmakers who will press her on her since-retracted description of the Benghazi attack as the byproduct of an angry protest over an American-made film ridiculing Islam. She'll be joined by acting CIA Director Michael Morell in the meetings.

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Via Think Progress:

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She said she respects Republican Sen. John McCain, who has been critical of her, but says "some of the statements he's made about me have been unfounded, but I look forward to having the opportunity at the appropriate time to discuss all of this with him."

Her comments attributing the attacks to a mob enraged over an anti-Muslim video posted on YouTube were widely denounced by Republicans during the U.S. presidential campaign. The attack came on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States, and her critics said it was clearly a terrorist attack aimed at the anniversary. U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed.

The focus has fallen on Rice because she is a longtime White House insider and is believed to be President Barack Obama's first choice to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is not expected to stay on during his second term.

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If Obama does nominate Rice, the current U.N. ambassador and his longtime friend, it will create a very public showdown between the president and the man he defeated in 2008. The question is whether John McCain, who has emerged as the GOP’s loudest Rice critic and who has pledged to block her nomination, is fighting this battle by himself – or if he can bring the rest of the Republican Party along with him.

If stopping Rice at all costs were to become a GOP priority, her nomination would be in serious jeopardy. Republicans will have 45 votes when the new Senate convenes in January, more than enough to uphold a filibuster. Plus, if Rice were nominated and it became an all-out partisan battle, Republicans would potentially be able to win over a few red state Democrats, who might feel home state pressure to side against Obama. West Virginia’s Joe Manchin comes to mind here.

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