Ever draw a line in the sand over the possible next Secretary of State then have that strategy blow up in your face? Then you know what it’s like to be John McCain today. That and more of the stories we’ll be discussing at 4 p.m.
- Susan Rice meets her Benghazi accusers—Senators McCain, Graham and Ayotte—today. (First Read)
- Poll: 54% say there was no Benghazi coverup, while only 40% say “coverup.” In other words, “coverup” doesn’t even get Mitt Romney numbers. (CNN)
- Yasser Arafat’s body is being exhumed to determine whether he died from a stroke—or poisoning. (BBC)
- An excellent picture of what protests in Tahrir Square look like right now. (Bobby Ghosh)
- So long, Intrade (U.S. edition). (NASDAQ)
- A timeline of Republicans throwing Grover Norquist under the bus. (National Journal)
- Washington Post comes out as, sort of, pro pot: “We favor decriminalizing possession of small amounts of pot, assessing civil fines instead of locking people up.” Somewhere, the Dude just bowled a Golden Turkey. (The Washington Post)
- The State Department decided not to send party rocker Andrew W.K. as cultural ambassador to Bahrain. Left unresolved: How will Bahrainis know when it’s time to party hard? (In the Loop)
- The people who brought you GOP electoral failures like Richard Mourdock and Sharron Angle seem ready to do it all over again in the 2014 congressional elections. (On Congress)
- North Dakota’s losing GOP senate candidate was so sure he’d win on Election Day, he left hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars unspent. Whoops. (Shira Toeplitz)
- A new Pew poll of voter demographics makes 2016 seem an even steeper uphill climb for the GOP: “The under 30s are by far the most racially and ethnically diverse age group. Just 58% are white non-Hispanic, compared with 76% of voters older than 30.” And “They are the only age group in which a majority said that the government should do more to solve problems.” (Pew Research)
- What do GOP super PACs do after an election? They turn on each other. (Mother Jones)
- Who’s at a closed-door meeting with potential 2016 hopeful Jeb Bush? Why none other than Mitt Romney pollster Neil “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers” Newhouse. (National Review)
- Potential 2016 hopeful New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo steps in it, saying Hurricane Sandy is worse than Katrina. (The New York Times)
John Flowers