Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) today issued a statement essentially conceding that he was wrong in accusing the White House of changing U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice’s talking points on Benghazi for political purposes.

Former CIA Director David Petraeus told lawmakers last week that the CIA’s assessment that al Qaeda was responsible for the Sept. 11 attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi was taken out of Rice’s talking points after an interagency review. McCain and his allies then claimed the White House took out the talking points because it supposedly undercut the Obama administration’s narrative that it had severely weakened al Qaeda.

But Intelligence officials told CNN yesterday that the intelligence community was responsible for the changes made to Rice’s talking points. The Director of National Intelligence spokesperson said that the White House did not make any “substantive changes.”

McCain responded today and instead of taking issue with the substance of the report, the Arizona Republican wondered why administration and intelligence officials didn’t offer this information in closed door sessions:

“I participated in hours of hearings in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week regarding the events in Benghazi, where senior intelligence officials were asked this very question, and all of them – including the Director of National Intelligence himself – told us that they did not know who made the changes. Now we have to read the answers to our questions in the media. There are many other questions that remain unanswered. But this latest episode is another reason why many of us are so frustrated with, and suspicious of, the actions of this Administration when it comes to the Benghazi attack.”

Of course, it’s possible that the officials did not know who changed the talking points when McCain and other lawmakers asked last week, and later made inquires into the matter.

But McCain, along with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Republicans, has lead a proverbial witch hunt against the Obama administration and Rice, claiming that the administration deliberately misled the public about the nature of the attacks. Today’s news comes just a week after McCain went on national television and claimed that Rice’s “talking points came from the White House, not from the DNI.” He added on Fox that “I think it’s patently obvious that the talking points that Ambassador Rice had didn’t come from the CIA. It came from the White House.” For weeks, McCain has lambasted the administration for engaging in “either a cover-up or the worst kind of incompetence” on the Benghazi attack. McCain also said last week that “[e]verybody knew that it was an al Qaeda attack and she continued to tell the world through all of the talk shows [on Sept. 16] that it was a ‘spontaneous demonstration’ sparked by a video.”

McCain has also said he would block the nomination of Rice for Secretary of State, should the President choose her, saying he would “do everything in my power to block her,” that Rice is “not qualified” for the position and that “she should have known better.” He subsequently said he would bock any nominee Obama put forward.

But now that every angle of McCain’s attacks have been completely debunked, all he has left is to complain about not being told that intelligence officials didn’t give him this information sooner.

Israel has, for the moment, postponed or decided against a ground incursion into Gaza pending international diplomatic efforts to reach a cease fire. While Israeli leaders deliberate, it’s worth reviewing the last thirty years of Israeli ground wars, in which Israel conducted roughly four* major ground operations, to see whether Israeli they accomplished their strategic ends. The evidence suggests the incursions were occasionally tactically successful, but generally did not succeed strategically and always carried a high body count.

Two caveats. First, this is an attempt to assess whether Israeli ground incursions were successful on their own strategic-military terms, and does not examine any questions about the rightness or morality of Israeli actions. Second, the casualty counts below represent estimates from the entire conflict in question, not the ground campaign specifically. Since ground operations were major parts of each of the conflicts in question, and separating what counts as a “ground” casualty is methodologically difficult, it is fair to employ the more general casualty count.

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With the world focused on the conflict in Gaza and President Obama’s trip to Asia, rebel forces taking a city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has received little attention. Members of the M23 group on Tuesday seized control of the border-town of Goma, a city of a little over one million inhabitants, capturing its radio station and parading downtown.

The fall of Goma is the latest move in one of Africa’s longest and bloodiest conflicts. Complicating the matter is Rwanda’s alleged support for the rebels. While M23 rebels on Monday withdrew to positions further from Goma to provide space for political talks, putting forward a list of demands in order to seal a cease-fire, the Congolese government rebuffed the offer.

That refusal set off the current clashes between Congo’s army and rebels, leading to an army withdrawal and M23 control of Goma. The Rwandan and Congolese presidents are reported to be meeting today to help defuse the crisis. The Ugandan government meanwhile, also accused of supporting M23, has said that it has called for calm, while blaming a U.N. report for the new violence.

M23′s rise can be seen as a continuation of events in 2008, during which another Rwandan-backed group known as the CNDP sowed chaos in resource-rich Eastern Congo. After the European Union threatened to intervene, the solution at the time, agreed to on Mar. 23, 2009, was to integrate the CNDP into the Congolese army. Instead of forging a lasting peace, many of those same soldiers defected earlier this year to form the M23, led by wanted war-criminal Gen. Bosco Ntaganda.

NGOs such as Amnesty International and others are highlighting the plight that internally displaced citizens face caught in the cross-fire, as thousands have fled. Oxfam’s humanitarian coordinator Tariq Riebl, currently on the ground near Goma, said yesterday, “Families have been split up overnight and people are desperately going between sites trying to find loved ones. If fighting intensifies further, there are very few places people can go for safety. With almost 2.5 million people now displaced across eastern Congo, this catastrophe requires a concerted humanitarian and diplomatic response.”

Meanwhile, members of the United Nations peacekeeping force in the Congo, the largest in the world with 6,700 blue helmets in the North Kivu region alone, had utilized attack helicopters to bolster Congolese assaults on M23 positions for months, and retains control of Goma’s airport. However, the U.N. has reported that is pulling “non-essential personnel” from Eastern Congo as a precaution and the peacekeepers were unable to prevent Goma’s fall.

At the United Nations Security Council, French diplomats are currently circulating a draft resolution expressing its intention to impose financial and travel sanctions on the M23′s political and military supporters. While the text does not specifically call out Rwanda or Uganda, the draft is in line with a proposal put forward last week by a U.N. Group of Experts to apply these bans to the Rwandan Defense Minister. Rwanda is due to join the Council as a rotating member in Jan. 2013, a position that is facing intensifying scrutiny. The U.S. has not provided comment at this time whether they support France’s draft, which is due to be voted upon at 5:30 PM EST.

Intelligence officials told CNN that the intelligence community, not the White House, changed the now infamous Benghazi talking points given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice before her appearance on several morning news shows in September. CNN quoted both the spokesperson for the Director of National Intelligence and an anonymous official “familiar with the drafting of the talking points.” The DNI spokesperson said that the only “substantive changes” came from the intelligence community and not the White House.

Former CIA Director David Petraeus told lawmakers in a closed door hearing last week that the CIA’s original assessment on the Sept. 11 Benghazi attack was that it was carried out by al Qaeda affiliated groups. But he reportedly said that analysis was later taken out after an interagency review in favor of a more general assessment that “extremists” carried out the attack to broaden the scope and not tip off terrorists to U.S. knowledge on the matter. And despite the fact that Petraeus said the CIA approved the change, Republicans, led by Republican senators John McCain (AZ), Lindsey Graham (SC) and Kelly Ayotte (NH), have accused the White House of stripping the language for political reasons.

But Shawn Turner, the spokesman for the Director of National Intelligence, told CNN that it wasn’t the White House’s decision:

“The intelligence community made substantive, analytical changes before the talking points were sent to government agency partners for their feedback. There were no substantive changes made to the talking points after they left the intelligence community.”

Another anonymous intelligence official echoed Turner, saying that the changes were made based on legitimate intelligence and for legal purposes:

“First, the information about individuals linked to al Qaeda was derived from classified sources. Second, when links were so tenuous – as they still are – it makes sense to be cautious before pointing fingers so you don’t set off a chain of circular and self-reinforcing assumptions. Third, it is important to be careful not to prejudice a criminal investigation in its early stages.”

Indeed, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told the New York Times last week that in his closed door briefing, Petraeus “was adamant there was no politicization of the process, no White House interference or political agenda.”

The fight over the talking points will most likely continue; it has even become a campaign cause for Republican senators like Lindsey Graham. Others like John McCain have vowed to do “everything” to block the potential nomination of Susan Rice for Secretary of State. But Democrats in Congress and media commentators are beginning to wonder why Republicans are picking a substance-free fight with Rice, a woman and an African-American, after the drubbing they took in last month’s elections among those demographics.

Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) this morning defended U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, calling out Republican use of “code words” in attacking Rice’s professional capabilities.

Appearing on CNN, Clyburn, the number three Democrat in the House of Representatives and the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, added his voice to a growing number of lawmakers concerned with the appearance of the Republican Party potentially blocking a minority nominee to the President’s cabinet so soon after a bruising electoral loss among minorities.

In particular, Clyburn focused on a letter circulated by more than 90 House Republicans that uses terms like “incompetent” to describe Rice’s performance at the U.N. in discouraging Obama from nominating Rice to take over as Secretary of State:

CLYBURN: You know, these are code words. We heard them during the campaign. During this recent campaign, we heard [Romney surrogate John] Sununu calling our President ‘lazy’, ‘incompetent.’ These kinds of terms that those of us, especially those of us that who were born and raised in the South, we’ve been hearing these little words and phrases all of our lives. And we get insulted by them. Susan Rice is as competent as anyone you will find. And to place that word on her causes problems with people like Marcia Fudge and it certainly causes a problem with me. I don’t like those words. Say that she was wrong for doing it, but don’t call her incompetent.

Clyburn isn’t alone in his assessment of the issues the Republican Party is running up again in their pursuit of Rice. The hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe also were incredulous that the GOP would be looking for this fight, against a highly regarded woman of color, so quickly. Host Joe Scarborough, a Republican himself, was struck by how his party seemed unwilling to moderate its tone, with his co-host Mika Brzezinski saying, “It looks like a bunch of old white men running women out of Washington.”

Watch all three statements here:

Rice is currently being targeted by House and Senate Republicans for her role in the Obama administration’s response to the Sept. 11 attack against a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya. While the intelligence community has provided ample evidence that the talking points that Rice delivered on Sept. 16 were accurate at the time, this has not stopped Republicans from preemptively seeking to block a Rice appointment to take over for out-going Secretary Hillary Clinton.