| Morning Jolt – November 28, 2012 By Jim Geraghty Here's your Wednesday Morning Jolt. Enjoy! Jim Rice, in Hot Water Hmm: On Libya, 54% of the country is dissatisfied with the administration's response to the Benghazi attack, with only four in ten saying they're satisfied with the way the White House handled the matter. "But that dissatisfaction is not because Americans see a cover-up," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Only 40% believe that the inaccurate statements that administration officials initially made about the Benghazi attack were an attempt to deliberately mislead the public. Fifty-four percent think those inaccurate statements reflected what the White House believed to be true at the time." Nearly half of those questioned (48%) say that the U.S. could have prevented the attack on its consulate in Benghazi, with 42% saying the U.S. could not have prevented the attack. Wrong question, I would posit. As the U.S. government is not omnipotent, there was little it could do to prevent the attack entirely (short of abandoning all operations in Benghazi, which the Red Cross and other international organizations did as the security situation deteriorated). But agreeing to the requests for more security in the weeks and months before the attack would have changed the odds, and certainly an armed response from forces in the region would have led to a different outcome -- perhaps not saving all of the lives, but perhaps saving some. In light of President Obama's defiant tone on Susan Rice a little while ago, it's surprising that she felt the need to come to Capitol Hill and try to make nice with some skeptical GOP senators. From this we can read that (a) she is indeed the most likely nominee to be the next secretary of state and (b) either she or the White House or someone in the Democrats' hierarchy is at least a little nervous about the prospect of confirmation hearings. Whatever the motivation, Rice's meeting on the Hill Tuesday didn't go so well: After meeting with U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on Tuesday, three GOP lawmakers said their concerns have only grown about misleading statements Rice made concerning the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya that left Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead. Rice's meeting with Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte on Capitol Hill came as the White House signaled it may nominate Rice to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of State. McCain, R-Ariz., has said he may oppose her nomination because she should have known her statements on the Sept. 11 attack were false. Rice said in a round of interviews days after the deadly incident that the attack may have emerged from a protest outside the consulate in response to an anti-Islam video produced in the USA. It was later learned there was no protest and the attack was a well-organized terror plot likely timed for the anniversary of 9/11. . . . "The American people got bad information on 16 September, they got bad information from President Obama days after," Graham said. "The question is: Should they have been giving the information at all. . . . It's unjustified to give the scenario as presented by Ambassador Rice and President Obama three weeks before an election." Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA operations officer and now an analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a conservative think tank, says Rice's performance after the Benghazi attack raises a red flag. "These officials are supposed to assess these things for themselves," Gerecht said. "If you see a situation where a consulate safe house is being attacked by mortars and organized teams, that should tell you this was planned before that video came out." Ann Althouse asks, "Shouldn't Rice be better at conciliation if she's got what it takes to be Secretary of State?" Picture a confirmation hearing in which Rice is forced to say that she genuinely thought the use of mortar fire was part of a spontaneous protest against a video, and that at no point did she think anything different. With 55 Democrat or Democrat-aligned senators, her confirmation is pretty much assured, but she could end up looking like a fool long before the vote. Could She Who Scoffed at Red Sox Fans Be Back? Oh please, oh please . . . She is the woman who couldn't beat Scott Brown, but now she's the Democrats' best hope to keep the governor's office in 2014. Don't laugh, but that woman is Attorney General Martha Coakley. Lt. Gov. Tim Murray? Treasurer Steve Grossman? Please. If they're the best the party can offer, then Republicans might actually have a chance at winning a statewide race again. Coakley is still scarred from her 2010 Senate defeat, and many Democrats shudder at the thought of her running again. There is a possibility Gov. Deval Patrick could appoint her to U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry's seat if Kerry gets a Cabinet post, but sources said she's more interested in succeeding Patrick in the Corner Office. "That's what she's definitely looking at," one veteran Democratic strategist said. Now the irony is that I've heard Scott Brown is also more interested in being governor of Massachusetts than running for Senate again. Brown vs. Coakley: The Rematch! Judging a Booker Poll by Its Cover It's early, but . . . maybe the 2013 gubernatorial races aren't going to be so exciting. In Virginia, we'll see Ken Cuccinelli as the GOP nominee, since Bill Bolling has suddenly dropped his bid. At this point, it looks like Cuccinelli will be taking on the jovial soul Terry McAuliffe, a former DNC chairman who flamed out in a 2009 bid. McAuliffe would be a very, very "Northern Virginia" candidate, which may or may not be enough in an off-year election. Then there's New Jersey, where everyone thought there was a chance of a clash of the titans, incumbent Republican Chris Christie against Democrat Cory Booker, mayor of Newark. Eh, maybe not so much: Newark Mayor Cory Booker remains the wild card, with political observers believing he is the Democrat with the best chance of ousting Christie. He didn't respond to an interview request and his Twitter account was silent on political matters. Booker fares best among Democrats against Christie in head-to-head tests in a new Rutgers-Eagleton Poll but still would get thumped by Christie, 53 percent to 34 percent, if the election took place now. The poll also shows 59 percent of New Jersey voters support a second term for Christie, with 32 percent opposing. Support for Christie's re-election has risen dramatically since before Sandy, said David Redlawsk, director of the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll and a professor of political science at Rutgers. The sequence could scare off Booker, Red-lawsk said. "Any Democrat, even Booker, has to take these numbers seriously. At the same time Booker remains the Democrat who would seem to have the best chance in the early running." Liz Marlantes of the Christian Science Monitor looks at some recent examples of governors who had their popularity changed by hurricanes: The goodwill Christie amassed in the weeks immediately following the storm shouldn't be underestimated, either. A perhaps more relevant comparison is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush -- who, interestingly, seems to be pondering a 2016 run himself. Bush was widely praised by Democrats and Republicans alike for his handling of a series of hurricanes that battered the Sunshine State in 2004 and 2005. The St. Petersburg Times dubbed him "The Hurricane Governor" in a laudatory profile that quoted Democratic strategists who'd worked for his opponent as saying he'd been "a superb leader." Two years later, Bush left office with a nearly 60 percent approval rating. On the other hand, it's worth noting that Bush's predecessor, former Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles, was roundly criticized in the wake of 1992's Hurricane Andrew -- with his approval rating in the state going all the way down to a dismal 22 percent. Two years later he won reelection, anyway. In what is undoubtedly the same kind of buzz that got President Jon Huntsman where he is today, The New Yorker is suddenly writing gushing profiles that talk about Christie's presidential potential: As a launching pad for Christie's 2013 reelection campaign, all of this could hardly be better, and it also provides him with a ready route to 2016. If he wins next year, which seems likely, he can continue the process of rebuilding the areas battered by Sandy and push through more reforms, while quietly constructing the political operation and campaign chest he needed for a run in 2016. Here, too, being from Jersey is an advantage. The national media and the moneymen are just across the river. (Having been unsuccessfully prevailed upon to run in 2022 by a group of super-rich Republicans, including Rupert Murdoch and Wilbur Ross, Christie shouldn't have much trouble raising cash.) Ahem. That was before he was seen as the guy who spent the final weeks before Election Day doing more to restore Obama's brand as a bipartisan healer than anyone else this side of Richard Lugar. Some of those GOP moneymen are going to be a little grumpy if Christie calls in the near future, I suspect. They continue: Small wonder, then, that Christie is widely regarded as one of the front-runners for the G.O.P. nomination in 2016. But before he can be seen as a wholly viable candidate, he still has some issues to resolve, including his record as U.S. Attorney, his political identity inside the Republican Party, and his health. That last item is a legitimate concern, although clearly Christie has managed to be an effective governor with his weight issues. Perhaps the biggest indicator of his ambitions after 2013 will be his waistline. ADDENDUM: One of the great comedic influences of my life was Dennis Miller's rapid-fire, obscure-reference sarcasm behind the desk of "Weekend Update" at Saturday Night Live in the late 1980s. Since some readers still seem a little gloomy, permit me to help you get into the holiday spirit by offering Dennis Miller and his clones -- played by Dana Carvey and a young Tom Hanks -- singing "Jingle Bells." (You may need to sit through an ad before the sketch begins.) To read more, visit www.nationalreview.com Save 75% . . . 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