No wonder, under those awkward circumstances, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, CIA head David Petreaus, White House terrorism czar John Brennan, and other more knowledgeable administration spokespersons were all suddenly "unavailable." And no wonder, under those awkward circumstances, that Susan Rice was given intelligence community talking points that were less than models of clarity and precision.
If
No One Mentions It, Does It Still Exist?
The dominant media narrative now is that Rice's un-nomination was undone by Republican wrath, while few mention increased criticism of her record and fewer still note that she has yet to acknowledge, never mind cure a glaring potential conflict of interest she would have had as Secretary of State, and still has as UN Ambassador -- namely her and her husband's multi-million dollar holdings in Canadian firms that own or have interests in the Keystone XL pipeline that will, if built, bring toxic Canadian tar sands oil across America to the Gulf Coast to be shipped overseas.
Almost a year ago, President Obama postponed the decision to allow the pipeline to cross into the United States, but his administration has indicated that a decision, which rests officially with the Secretary of State, will be made in early 2013.
Since financial disclosure statements are allowed to be quite imprecise, we know only that Rice has reported a personal net worth of somewhere between $23. 5 and $43.5 million, of which about one third, or $8 million-plus, is invested in the oil industry. With a large personal stake in TransCanada, the corporation that owns and is building the pipeline, Susan Rice as secretary of state approving the pipeline would also enrich herself significantly. Against that, she would have to weigh arguments that approving the pipeline would have lethally catastrophic consequences for millions of people over the next century -- or as NASA scientist James Hansen put it some months ago, approval of the Keystone pipeline will be "game over for the climate."
Even less coverage has been given to the assessment that those same disclosure documents show that Rice's holdings include companies doing business with Cuba and Iran, despite U.S. sanctions against both countries.
Even though the financial disclosure statements are public documents, Susan Rice's wealth didn't become an issue until it was first reported on November 28 by onearth.org. Even then most media -- and most Republicans -- ignored the issue. The New York Times covered it in a blog, where Dan Frosch noted that:
According
to the United States Office of Government
Ethics , federal law requires executive branch employees to be
recused from matters "if it would have a direct and predictable effect on the
employee's own financial interests or on certain financial interests that are
treated as the employee's own."
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
