http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=4304A2D7-493B-4FC4-B3F0-3087985D1CF4 John McCain: Jay Carney at an ‘all-time low’
By: Jonathan Topaz
May 6, 2014 09:38 AM EDT
Sen. John McCain has slammed White House press secretary Jay Carney, saying his comments on Benghazi have “destroyed his own reputation.”
“He has destroyed his own reputation by that statement that clearly was the talking points, which had nothing to do but Benghazi, saying it had nothing to do with Benghazi,” the Senate Armed Services Committee member said on Fox News Monday evening. “That, to me, is an all-time low for a presidential spokesperson.”
McCain was referring to Jay Carney’s comments in a press briefing last week that the recently uncovered 2012 White House email about talking points for then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice was “not about Benghazi.”
McCain said he used to view Carney, who at one time before joining the Obama administration served as Washington bureau chief at Time magazine, as a “pretty straightforward journalist.”
During the interview, the Arizona Republican offered high praise for Rep. Trey Gowdy, the congressman tapped by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to lead the Benghazi select committee. McCain said Gowdy “is a smart young man” and “is right out of the Lindsey Graham mold,” a reference to one of McCain’s closest friends in the Senate, who, like Gowdy, is a South Carolina Republican.
McCain added that Democrats are “scared to death” of the select committee and what it might uncover.
