The
ethics agency also advises that employees may be directed to divest financial
investments if they pose a substantial conflict.
Does
Accountability Begin with Acknowledgement?
So far, Susan Rice has publicly ignored the issue. She has not acknowledged that she has a conflict of interest, and she has not cured it. She has not divested herself of her investments in the Canadian oil industry, or the oil industry generally. She has not promised to recuse herself from decisions involving her conflict of interest.
Media attention to the question has been scant despite its relevance and significant implications, with preference given to the obvious entertainment values of the on-going Republican rhetorical pie-throwing contest, punctuated with frequent reference to President Obama's forceful defense of Susan Rice in mid-November, when the only issue for Rice seemed to be Benghazi.
Two weeks later, Rice's conflict of interest question came up at a White House briefing, when White House press secretary Jay Carney sidestepped a direct answer:
"I
would commend Republican opposition researchers for the intellectual bandwidth
that is required to read a financial disclosure form," Carney said of the
issue, "because this was all documented in a financial disclosure form."
From there, most of the mainstream media let the unanswered question go unexplored. At the same time, a few started raising questions about Susan Rice's actual record over the previous 20 years. On December 4, the New York Times ran a lengthy op-ed column by an experienced British journalist that raised doubts about Rice's past judgments on several issues of both policy and character (later answered by one of Rice's former colleagues at the Brookings Institute). Five days later, a Times editorial raised more troubling questions, suggesting that Rice has "a surprising and unsettling sympathy for Africa's despots."
On December 12, The Daily Beast ran a piece titled "Susan Rice's Personality "Disorder'" that argued that Rice was "being subjected to an immutable law of the Washington power grid: in the rough and tumble of political combat, personality trumps policy." The piece went on to group Rice with such unlovable failed nominees of the past as John Tower, Robert Bork, and John Bolton (although Bolton did get a recess appointment as UN Ambassador).
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