"In recent weeks, new lines of attack have been raised to malign my character and my career. Even before I was nominated for any new position, a steady drip of manufactured charges painted a wholly false picture of me."
That's U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, on the opinion page of today's Washington Post, explaining why she's asked President Obama not to consider her for the post of secretary of state.
The "new lines of attack" she's referring to are the ongoing charges by some Republicans that she misled the nation with the statements she made five days after the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.
On that point, Rice writes in the Post that:
"When discussing Benghazi, I relied on fully cleared, unclassified points provided by the intelligence community, which encapsulated their best current assessment. These unclassified points were consistent with the classified assessments I received as a senior policymaker. It would have been irresponsible for me to substitute any personal judgment for our government's and wrong to reveal classified material."
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