Rice: No time to think about Benghazi

National security advisor Susan Rice expressed no regrets over her interviews following the assault on the American diplomatic annex in Benghazi, Libya, saying she does not have time to think about an issue blown out of proportion.

{mosads}“I don’t have time to think about a false controversy,” Rice said in an interview that aired Sunday night on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” “In the midst of all of the swirl about things like talking points, the administration’s been working very, very hard across the globe to review our security of our embassies and our facilities. That’s what we ought to be focused on.”

Rice became mired in a controversy that stood in the way of her becoming secretary of State, after she called the attack in Benghazi spontaneous on the Sunday morning talk shows; it later came out that it was a planned attack. The administration says she was expressing the intelligence at the time.

Correspondent Lesley Stahl asked Sunday why then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not appear on the shows instead; Rice defended her.

“She had just gone through an incredibly painful and stressful week,” Rice said. “Secretary Clinton, as our chief diplomat, had to reach out to the families, had to greet the bodies upon their arrival at Andrews Air Force Base. If I were her, the last thing I would have wanted to do is five Sunday morning talk shows. So I think it’s perfectly understandable.”

Read more on The Hill.