0 these attacks following what happened in benghazi, was it not? >> reporter: i think -- and this is something i think we in the collective media and i don't know how to define that anymore these days -- >> well, you're in the center of it, chuck. >> reporter: well, that's what they tell me. it's interesting, susan rice, because she doesn't have her oun consulting team around her, doesn't have a full pr team, was more susceptible to this type of where one story where she could become the victim of these attacks very quickly, it could take hold. you look at our nbc/"wall street journal" polling, she was measuring a net negative. 69% of the country knew who she was which is frankly unheard of for a cabinet level position like u.n. ambassador. it was all driven in many cases by some conservative outlets who were making her the center of the benghazi story when there were legitimate questions to ask about the benghazi story, but the idea that she belonged in the center of those attacks never made a lot of sense. she sort of became a victim of this. i think it's too easy now in the way our media whirl ee eed -- w is set up, you can become collateral damage in a hurry, whether it's twitter, advocacy journalism, talk road, aadio, a that's what she was. she became political collateral damage and that's something we've got a little introspection. >> i get that and i understand the adversarial nature of the media. in her own letter she says series someone who grew up in an era of comparative bipartis bipartisanship and as someone who served the u.s. in two u.s. administrations, i'm saddened we've reached this point. even before you have decided upon whom to nominate. she's tuck beialking about the conflicts that you placed in the media, she says it's happening politically. >> i think she's right and i'm not going to sit here and say which comes first, but there is advocacy journalism or media -- jumpism is n journalism is not the right word. i think potentially overly reactive to it and that has consequences like what we saw i think with susan rice. >> chuck, thanks so much. john alter is here with me, including professor michael eric dyson and ari melber. john, she was bullied, wasn't she? >> she was bullied, but we shouldn't pretend that just because this was, you know, an irresponsible level of opposition that it's somehow unprecedented in american history. there are many examples going back over many administrations of nominees, sometimes after the point at which the president has named them, who for whatever reason were not politically acceptable to the u.s. senate, and they do constitutionally have the right to advise and consent on nominations. so they do have a constitutional role here to play, and whether they think she was the right choice for secretary of state is relevant. i'm not saying that to defend them driving her out of this consideration. i think it was shameless. i think to blame her for benghazi was ridiculous. but we should understand this in a context. this is not something that just started with fox news. there are many such nominees who have foundered in the past. >> yes, indeed. ari melber, what's your reaction to this decision? do you think that she, herself, is the product of a witch hunt that, frankly, has proved successful for republicans? >> well, clearly it's successful for those republicans who without the strength of the majority sought to prevent her from ever getting a hearing or senators who opposed her playing a foreign policy role in this administration. what i counted, and i have done some reporting on this issue, was about six senators who said they were considering filibustering her, maybe several more who didn't like some of her positions and wanted to get into the details 6 some of her statements about libya. but we have to be very clear when when he look at these kind of standoffs and we look at the way washington works that we in the press and many in the political class fall into the habit of talking about what a small minority does as if it's the majority. i don't mean to go on too long -- >> but you are so pause a minute, ari. >> i think it's an important -- >> of course it is. >> it's not a question of 51 votes. it never has been in the united states senate long before all of these filibuster issues and things. if you lose a certain set -- number of senators, not 51, but if you're starting to wobble with people like susan collins, who is a moderate republican, and your support is cratering even among a relatively small group of senators, your nomination becomes politically untenable. and what susan rice's spokesman just told me was she started to think this was a distraction, a political distraction, and presidents have to worry about that. she obviously has a high regard for her friend, the president, and she didn't want to be a distraction to him. so, you know, it's unfortunate that this happened, but we shouldn't assume that it's the product of totally unusual circumstances. >> i'm not talking about whether -- but i'm not talking about whether it's unusual or not but whether it's democratic. skt john ashcroft if you can get through the senate on a narrow vote. >> you must have political support to be confirmed. >> you rest your voice for two seconds. i was listening to the interview that brian williams has been conducting with ambassador susan rice, and she said that she was not expecting to do that original interview on "meet the press" when she was sent out to defend the administration. she did so because the secretary of state, hillary clinton, had had such a grueling week that she was asked and she was willing to do it. it was her willingness to serve the administration that's resulted in the witch hunt that occurred immediately after. >> it's full of ironies if not paradoxes. she was the second in command or at least in seniority after hillary clinton, the second senior person. it made sense for her to go forward. she goes forward to defend them and this rebounds negatively on her. while we know that mr. alter is absolutely right in terms of the democratic process and ari melber is absolutely right in terms of what the consequence will be, the reality is that, yes, there's a historical precedent for that, but it has even more significance now because it attacks a woman of such pedigree when the question is not only her qualifications as per se who she is, but we know collectively what's going on here. we don't want to name what this is. we try to pretend we're being kind here, but we know she's one of the highest ranking african-american people here and a female. the assault upon her intelligence stands apart from any consideration of race or gender but when you throw race and gender in, the consideration of intelligence becomes even more acutely, you know, resonant here. i think we have to acknowledge that and her willingness to serve the country and withdraw mer nomination suggests she truly is about the broader sense of democracy and serving the greater good. >> she's said throughout she's spent her life as a public servant and in withdrawing her candidacy she's acting the same way. >> it's still a shame. >> correspondent mike viqueira is on capitol hill. i imagine you're listening to the popping of champagne corks coming out of senator john mccain's office and lindsey graham. is that what's happening there? >> reporter: there's some belief already that you see that there's a scalp that was thrown their way. >> no, you surprise me. they're not celebrating a scalp are they? >> if the question is will they satisfy the opponents of susan rice whether they be john mccain or lindsey graham or other senators who have spoken out against her, i doubt it. we live in a age when if there's a fight to be had, a fight will be had. there is always political advantage being sought here, and i don't think this is going to mean anything in terms of a softening of the president's -- or opposition to the president's agenda or other appointments that might come down the line. speaking of which, one of the odder by-products of this entire episodes as it has dragged on is the republican endorsement of john kerry for that job. we've heard an endless stream of republicans come forth and endorse john kerry. as a matter of fact, i just saw john kerry coming out of a briefing on, guess what? a closed briefing from the dni, james clapper, on benghazi. senators were being presented with new photographic and video evidence that chronicled what happened that night, september 11th, of course, the night of the attack that claimed the life of ambassador chris stevens and others. john kerry did not stop. there's no medimmediat -- anoth scrum waiting to see what his reaction might be. i think the red flag that was raised here and talking about what chuck was talking about, having seen that cabinet meeting last week or was it the week before, martin, when president obama led a round of applause and gave a hearty endorsement to susan rice as she sat at the end of the cabinet room. i don't think there was any secret that this was very visceral for the president. any evidence you need of that privately or publicly you can look at his reaction in that post election press conference when he essentially said come after me if you're going to come after susan rice. but one of the red flags and this was mentioned earlier is when after one of those closed door briefings that we have here in the senate, susan collins, the very moderate senator from maine emerged to express her own reservations. she said she wouldn't put a hold or filibuster the nomination, i think that raised a red flag. and finally, dick durbin just said on sunday on "meet the press" he thought she could be confirmed if a vote came to that. obviously, we're not going to see whether durbin's prediction will come true. >> to the point you raised earlier and professor dyson just raised, professor dyson said we don't want to name it, but we have seen the attorney general eric holder pursued by republicans, and he's actually the subject of litigation now, and now what do we find but susan rice pursued in the way that she has been by senator john mccain and others. is there a theme here? >> reporter: i'm not going to go that far, martin. i think we live in such a partisan time that when you give someone an opportunity on the other side, a toehold, if you will, to wage this kind of fight in such a high-profile nomination, i think they're going to be taken. i have been back here on the senate for all of two days and i have witnessed a lot of farewell addresses on the senate floor. >> wherever you are there's trouble. >> and they all have one thing in common. they are lamenting the ideological straitjackets and partisan nature of what's going on here. >> let me say it for you. the reality is that, yes, all of that stuff that mike viqueira said is absolutely true. this stuff is independent of any kind of racial or even gender consideration. this is the nasty politics that we have become heir, too. but eric holder, barack obama, susan rice. what do they have in common? they're highly intelligent african-american people who did it the way america said they want it to be done. they've been well-educated. not that other well educated people have not been subjected to vicious recriminations, but there's a resonant theme here about highly intelligent black people and some unconscious refusal to acknowledge their legitimacy. i mean, the questioning of especially president obama's intelligence and susan rice's intelligence resonates very powerfully here and as jonathan halter did, i could give you history after history after history of the cases in which african-american people of prominence have been questioned, brought to the bar of public concern as to the legitimacy of their intelligence and yet all along proving they are more than superior to those who oppose them. >> wasn't the problem here additionally made more difficult after david petraeus went before the committee and said, terrorism was involved and appeared to contradict what susan rice had said, and at that point her position became more difficult, didn't it? >> and unten beableuntenable. >> it was difficult all along. and there was a good chance all along that john kerry, who on paper is more qualified than susan rice to be secretary of state, that he would eventually -- >> that could be argued. >> on paper. look at it in terms of the breadth of experience in foreign policy over many years. that's not to say she's unqualified. she's tremendous qualified herself, just on paper he is more qualified. there was always a chance going back more than a month that the president would move in that direction toward kerry so as to avoid a distracting senate fight, a fight that he probably could have won, probably could have gotten the 51 votes, but it might have been a bit of a parrot victory if he got her confirmed at what political cost -- >> it sounds like a victory -- if you get her confirmed, that's a victory. that's the goal -- i don't understand -- >> it's only a victory -- >> look -- >> it's only a victory if there's not a lot of other damage. >> here is the point, too. the guys who are in control of handing out the credentials, what experiences you get, then indict you for not having them when they have blocked you from achieving them. that's very interesting to me and that's not something to be easily dismissed because that's been the whole history of accepting people who have been historically closed out. that's why it makes a difference that all the females in the senate are not black. so that the female senators who are in the united states senate are there because of the virtue of some kind of affirmative action that they receive on the gendered end that they deny on the racial end. that's a nasty conundrum that america doesn't want to address. >> it puts us in a corner. ari, you wanted to interlude. >> i will interlude if you have a back up beat. i see mr. alter and i have a good faith disagreement. when you nominate someone for the job, if they get the job, the job of nominating them is done. that is victory. and republicans don't tend in washington to have these same issues about trying to figure out how to get their people in. they push hard. that's why i mentioned mr. ashcroft earlier. if you get in and get confirmed, then you're there to do the job. the other point i wanted to make is ambassador rice is not going anywhere. she remains in government. she was unfortunate for many of the reasons we've discussed today, but she remains a part of the cabinet and part of the president's foreign policy team and he emphasized that today. so while we have work to do here to figure out why this system doesn't work and why, as i said, majorities don't always rule in congress and the public doesn't always rule, we should also be careful to keep in mind that there are many qualified people including my former boss senator kerry and ambassador rice maintains her position as u.n. ambassador so that's also important. she's not going anywhere just yet. >> i hate to evoke spike lee, he goes in school days and says how come no pitchers or brothers on the wall. we know she's going to be in the cabinet but we're talking about the big plums. we're talking about the big jobs. >> michael, look, condi rice was secretary of state. >> absolutely. >> hillary clinton was secretary of state. she would have been the third woman in a row. >> absolutely. >> but if you can count them, you're proving my point. but if you can count them you're proving my point. >> pause for a second. end of round one. we'll be back in a moment. ari bell mer, jonathan alter, professor michael eric dyson. susan price sits down with brian williams for rock center tonight at 10:00 p.m. on nbc. stay with us. we'll have much more. ♪ it's so important to make someone happy ♪ when you give a child a toy, it has to work. ♪ make just one someone happy and when it's a toys for tots child, well, what could be more important? 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