Why is the Left suddenly saying bad things about Susan Rice?

From Richard Fernandez at PJM (edited):

After years of reporting that Susan Rice was the perfect candidate for Secretary of State and any criticism of her was either racist, misogynistic or both, the Left wing press outlets have suddenly brought her down with a volley of personal invective. 

Republicans on the Hill had basically limited their critique of Rice to her misleading statements following the Benghazi attack. Liberals, on the other hand, made it personal. Dana Milbank suggested Rice had an attitude problem. Maureen Dowd said Rice was too ambitious and unprincipled for her own good–or the country’s.

Yesterday at the Daily Beast, Lloyd Grove launched a bizarre attack on Rice that accused her of having a personality disorder. The left has also been driving the less personal attacks as well. Howard French said Rice’s Africa legacy is the further empowerment of dictators. Human Rights Watch’s Tom Malinowski knocked Rice for essentially enabling atrocities in Congo.

It’s almost as if they had set out to destroy Rice in concert; with pieces aimed at each and every one of the political bailiwicks in which she might claim support.  There was a remarkable sameness in the points suddenly raised against Rice by an avalanche of leaks and criticism and personal sniping that semingly came out of nowhere.

Jacob Heilbrunn of the Daily Beast now informs us that Rice was nothing more than a hack whose sole qualification was an eagerness to please superiors. Other than that she was a cipher.

Throughout, her most distinguishing trait seems to be an eagerness to please her superiors, which is entirely consistent with how she rode the escalator to success. Want to avoid declaring that genocide is taking place in Rwanda? Go to Rice. Want to fudge the facts in Libya? Rice is there again. Obama had it right when he observed that she “had nothing to do with Benghazi and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received.” But why, as Maureen Dowd asked, didn’t she question it? The answer is simple: because she rarely, if ever, questions authority. Instead she has made a career out of catering to it.

So what did Susan Rice do that would suddenly make so many elite opinion-shapers of the left suddenly start saying such awful things about her?  After all, to all appearances she's been a thoroughly loyal minion of King Barack, going on the Sunday talk shows to advance the story that the Benghazi attack was a reaction to a lousy video clip that had been on YouTube for six months.  Until a week ago she was reportedly the choice to be next Sec of State, and the Left's elite opinion-shapers couldn't praise her highly enough.

So what happened in a week to suddenly cause these same elite leftists to start saying such bad things about her?  The most likely explanation is that Obama and company want her discredited just in case she were to suddenly realize how cynically she'd been used by her boss, and decide to tell what she knows.

Republicans would still have a field day with the revelations, but if the word is out to the elite journos that Rice is discredited, the story would get zero air-time in the MSM--and thus wouldn't hurt the Democrats.

This is standard operating procedure for pols who effectively control the media.  The classic example is a pair of photos of Joseph Stalin walking along a river:  In the one released to the press he's leading a retinue, but he's the only one in front.  Years later the original photo was found--and showed a short man walking beside him a few inches away.

The short man so obviously close to Stalin was later accused of crimes against the state and executed.  Clearly, Stalin didn't want anyone to have any evidence that the man had been one of his trusted advisers and henchmen, and so he was airbrushed out of the pic.

But this is America.  Couldn't happen here.