The Weekly Standard’s Daniel Harper finds something cleverly hidden in plain sight here. It also might help explain why Barack Obama doesn’t like to answer tough questions; he reveals more than he’d like to even when he’s doing all he can not to.

At an otherwise predictably controlled news conference, Obama was asked by ABC’s Jonathan Carl about comments made by Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham earlier in the day about not wanting U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice nominated as Secretary of State. Before we get to the clip, check out what Harper picked up on:

President Barack Obama revealed at his press conference this afternoon that he is responsible for sending U.N. ambassador Susan Rice to speak to the American people a few days after the September 11 Benghazi terror attack.

“As I said before, she made an appearance at the request of the White House in which she gave her best understanding of the intelligence that had been provided to her,” Obama said at the press conference, defending the statements the ambassador to the U.N. made regarding the Benghazi attack.

Rice has been widely criticized for giving misleading statements about Benghazi. She maintained that the killing of four Americans stemmed for a spontaneous protest that got violent.

This is significant because until today, questions about why it was Rice who was the one who appeared on five different Sunday talk shows on September 16th to parrot the line that the Benghazi attack in Libya was the consequence of the anti-Muhammad video, were left unanswered.

That question has now been answered by Obama himself.

“She made an appearance at the request of the White House.”

There is another noteworthy moment in this exchange with Carl when Obama was visibly irritated by having to address the question. The president became indignant when referring to McCain and Graham’s comments, saying:

“…for them to go after the U.N. Ambassador, who had nothing to do with Benghazi… is outrageous.”

Obama then went on to suggest that Rice was being attacked because she was an “easy target”. In reality, it was the White House that made her the target.

(scratching head) If Ambassador Rice had nothing to do with Benghazi, why was she the one sent out to discuss it on five separate Sunday talk shows? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have someone from either DoD, the CIA, or the State Department do those interviews?

If this showdown between McCain, Graham, and Obama over Susan Rice continues, look for the media punditry to suggest that Rice is being opposed by two racist white guys.

Anyway, here is the relevant clip from today’s news conference.

h/t Hot Air