If President Barack Obama taps U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to take over for Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, her nomination will be met with stiff resistance by some Republican senators.

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., each pledged to filibuster Rice's prospective nomination as secretary of state due to her public explanations for the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Amid speculation that Obama might nominate Rice for the top diplomatic post to succeed Clinton, who has said she plans to step aide now that the president has won a second term, McCain said he would "do whatever to block the nomination that is within our power" at a press conference Wednesday on Capitol Hill.

Graham and McCain, joined by New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R), also called Wednesday for Congress to establish a temporary select committee to investigate the attacks in Libya.

But as Obama prepares for his first post-election news conference, at which he will likely be asked to address personnel issues in his administration, Republicans meant to send a strong pre-emptive warning.

"She is so disconnected from reality that I don’t trust her," Graham said.

ONTARIO, OH — Arizona Sen. John McCain delivered a stinging rebuke of President Barack Obama's handling of the terrorist attack on an American consulate in Libya, saying the commander in chief is either "engaged in a massive cover-up" or is "grossly incompetent."

The 2008 GOP presidential nominee focused his remarks on the Sept. 11, 2012 attack in Libya rather than Hurricane Sandy at an event in battleground Ohio that had been billed as a "storm relief and volunteer appreciation" event.

"This president is either engaged in a massive cover-up deceiving the American people or he is so grossly incompetent that he is not qualified to be the commander in chief of our armed forces. It's either one of them," McCain told Romney volunteers gathered here at a Victory Center.

Though the mention of the attacks has faded from Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's stump speech, it remains a hot button for conservatives who feel the death of four Americans was a result of negligence on the part of the White House. Democrats have condemned the accusations as an attempt by the right to politicize the tragedy, a notion McCain dismissed when speaking to reporters.

"I think it's interesting to note that when there was a success, such as when, thank God, we were able to get bin Laden, the administration poured out every single detail, even details that put American lives in danger," McCain said. He later added: "It is my obligation to the men and women who are serving to get the full story out to these four brave Americans have families. They deserve to know why their sons were sacrificed in the needless fashion."

As McCain motivated volunteers at Romney's Ohio headquarters, the GOP nominee held a relief event to collect supplies for those affected by Hurricane Sandy. Obama cancelled campaign events on Tuesday, and Romney scratched an earlier event in this state, a move McCain called "appropriate."

The 2008 presidential candidate said he believes the storm "froze everything in place while this terrible tragedy fixated the attention of the American people. Now i think they're ready to get back into this campaign."

Also joining McCain was Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who encouraged Ohioans to bring supplies to Victory Centers throughout the state. They are two of many surrogates who will be hitting the Buckeye State between now and Election Day. The focus now is turning out the base and getting as many early votes as possible before Nov. 6.

Asked to compare conservative enthusiasm now to at this point four years ago, McCain said, "I hate to admit it but it's much stronger than in 2008. That's just a fact."

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney last mentioned Libya in a campaign speech on Oct. 12, according to an NBC News review of his speeches.

Outside of his two debate appearances -- on Oct. 16 and Oct. 22 -- the GOP candidate has eschewed attacking President Barack Obama's handling of the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya at any of his public events.

Romney's last Libya-specific attack on the administration during a campaign event was related to Vice President Joe Biden's explanation of the administration's reaction and changing explanations for the attack, which left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

"We need to understand exactly what happened as opposed to just having people brush this aside," he said. "When the vice president of the United States directly contradicts the testimony, sworn testimony -- of State Department officials -- American citizens have a right to know just what’s going on. And we’re going to find out and this is a time to make sure we do find out."

Romney himself has only referenced Libya since then in his two final debates versus Obama. At the second debate, in New York, Romney slammed the administration's response, saying it "calls into question the president’s whole policy in the Middle East."

But Romney also struggled to respond to moderator Candy Crowley's insistence that Romney had erred on an issue of semantics -- whether Obama had specifically failed to label the attack an "act of terror" in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

In the third debate, this past Monday, Romney barely dwelled on the issue and declined to make an issue of Libya, an issue on which the Republican nominee had campaigned heavily for the better part of a month, until Oct. 12.

Romney adviser Kevin Madden, during a gaggle with reporters on Wednesday traveling with Romney, addressed why the GOP nominee hadn't spoken about Libya.

"Libya is still an issue with many voters, particularly given the conflicting statements from the president and his administration about the nature of the attack. The American people still have unanswered questions," he said.

The issue of the Benghazi attacks haven't died down over the last two weeks; indeed, many conservatives complained Wednesday about insufficient media attention paid to newly-revealed emails showing the State Department had identified messages on social media by extremist groups claiming responsibility for the Benghazi attacks.

Libya hasn't disappeared entirely from the Romney campaign's whole repertoire, either. Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan addressed it on Monday at a rally in Colorado, Romney surrogates have discussed the issue to varying outlets this month, too.

NBC’s Jordan Frasier, Jay Rankin and Matt Loffman contributed reporting

Mitt Romney seized Friday on Vice President Joe Biden's characterization of the administration's handling of last month's terrorist attack in Libya, accusing the administration of contradicting itself and "doubling down on denial."

The Republican presidential nominee praised the performance of his running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, at an early afternoon rally in Virginia, Romney's first since last night's vice presidential debate.

Steve Helber / AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney waves to the crowd as he arrives for a rally in Richmond, Va., Friday, Oct. 12, 2012.

Republicans have homed in, though, upon Biden's explanation last night of the Obama administration's handling of the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, which resulted in the deaths of four Americans including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

The vice president said "we did not know" that the post in Benghazi had asked for more security that day, the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. But that assertion differs from the testimony of State Department officials, who told lawmakers this week that they had, in fact, asked for increased security resources.

On Friday, Romney pounced.

"The vice president directly contradicted the sworn testimony of State Department officials," Romney said at a rally in Richmond, Va. "He's doubling down on denial."

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The Republican ticket has sought to turn the incident in Benghazi into an opportunity to distinguish itself from President Barack Obama on matters of foreign policy. Obama has led Romney on most issues of foreign policy and national security in the polls, though the GOP nominee has been able to gain traction on Libya due to some of the administration's own missteps.

The Obama administration, for instance, had initially maintained that the attack in Libya was the spontaneous outgrowth of protests related to an American video that portrayed Islam in an unflattering manner. But that explanation shifted in the weeks following the attack, and the administration eventually acknowledged that the mission in Libya was the target of a coordinated terrorist attack.

"As they learned more facts about exactly what happened, they changed their assessment," Biden explained of the evolving explanation during last night's debate.

The vice president also accused Romney of reacting haphazardly in the immediate aftermath of the attack, when the Republican nominee appeared on-camera hours after Stevens's death to accuse the administration of sympathizing with the attackers and apologizing for American values by way of condemning the video on Islam.

"Gov. Romney, before he knew the facts, before he even knew that our ambassador was killed, he was out making a political statement which was panned by the media around the world," Biden argued yesterday evening.

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But the Obama campaign's deputy manager, Stephanie Cutter, also invited Republican attacks -- including an indirect reference from Ryan during last night's debate -- for telling CNN that Romney and Ryan were to blame for turning the Libya incident into a political hot potato.

Romney, at his Virginia rally today, argued that voters are entitled to answers.

"We need to understand exactly what happened as opposed to just have people brush this aside," the Republican nominee argued. "When the vice president of the United States directly contradicts the testimony -- sworn testimony -- of State Department officials, American citizens have a right to know just what's going on. And we're going to find out. And this is the time for us to make sure we do find out."

Romney otherwise lionized his running mate for his debate performance, describing Ryan as "thoughtful and respectful and steady and poised" versus Biden's more visible mannerisms and aggressive style of debating.

During Wednesday’s hearing by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Libya, the reality of the situation on the ground in Benghazi came crashing down in front of the few lawmakers who had remained until the hearing’s fourth hour. While recounting the difficulty he had in trying to get more security forces in the country, Regional Security Office Eric Nordstrom explained that, sometimes, he felt as though he was being attacked from within.  

“You know what makes most frustrating about this assignment?” Nordstrom asked rhetorically, “It's not the hardships, it's not the gunfire, it's not the threats — it's dealing and fighting against the people and programs personnel who are supposed to be supporting me."

"For me, the Taliban is on the inside of the building," he said.

And while the statement attempted to paint a picture of the realities on the ground in Libya, the reality in the United States is that the discussion surrounding the attack, and whether it was preventable, has been overcome by politics.

“With each passing day, we learn more about the ways in which the Obama Administration misled the American people about the tragic events that transpired in the terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012,” Mitt Romney’s Policy Director, Lanhee Chen, said in a statement today.

The criticism keys in on comments made by UN Ambassador Susan Rice in the days after the attack in Benghazi.  During an interview on Meet the Press, Rice called the attack “a spontaneous reaction” and “a copycat of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo” in response to a video circulating on YouTube that criticizes the prophet Muhammad.

That story didn’t hold up, and nine days after the attack, Republican lawmakers told reporters that there was no evidence of a protest before the attack, even though Democrats said that the protest was still a factor that night.  After a classified, members-only briefing by Secretary Clinton on Capitol Hill, Rep Dutch Ruppersberger (MD), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, even called the demonstrations a “fact.”

A fuller picture emerged this Tuesday evening, when the State Department acknowledged that there had been no demonstration, and that the attack was instead “premeditated” and “unprecedented” considering the size and scope of operation that resulted in Amb. Stevens’s death.

What has transpired in the weeks since the attack in Benghazi is a game of political hot potato, where neither side wants to take the blame for oversights that contributed to the killing of a U.S. ambassador for the first time since Jimmy Carter was in the White House. 

Democrats argued Republicans shouldn’t be advocating for increased security in foreign countries when they have voted in the past years to cut funding for just that. The only problem is that while 147 Republicans voted to cut that funding, 149 Democrats voted to do the same.

Republicans say they want to get to the bottom of the attack, but they failed to allow the Democrats on the committee to access their key witness or any of the documents they had unearthed, a breach of traditional protocol during committee investigations.

But looking at this on the macro-level, the biggest hit during this political fight has been dealt to President Barack Obama himself.  

Foreign policy has been one of the president’s points of strength amid an anemic economic recovery. Obama’s foreign policy achievements, such as the killing of Osama Bin Laden and withdrawal from Iraq, have bolstered his résumé as he seeks a second term.

Sensing that advantage, Republicans have taken aim at the president's handling of the LIbya attack.

“I’m stunned that they thought that this was some kind of spontaneous demonstration,” Sen John McCain said on Sept. 20, “It shows the level of their abysmal knowledge about fundamental aspects of terrorist attacks and militant operations.”

It’s a characterization that president would like to avoid going into the final four weeks of the campaign, which will include a debate focusing specifically on foreign policy.

VAN METER, Iowa -- Mitt Romney said Tuesday that he had actually met one of the Navy SEALs to have been killed in the Sept. 11 attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Evan Vucci / AP

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney shakes hands during a campaign rally, Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012, in Van Meter, Iowa.

A day after delivering a major foreign policy speech -- which included sharp criticism of President Barack Obama's response to the terrorist attack -- Romney acknowledged having met the SEAL, Glen Doherty, during a past holiday party.

"This is kind of a strange story so bear with me here," Romney told an audience on a farm outside of Des Moines.  He went on to say that he and his wife, Ann Romney, had been invited to a neighborhood Christmas party a few years ago, but they inadvertently went to the wrong party.

"We were a little embarrassed, but they treated us well nonetheless.  And I got to meet some really interesting people," Romney continued. 

One of them, Romney said, was a former Navy SEAL from Romney's home state of Massachusetts.

"He told me that he keeps going back to the Middle East," Romney recalled.

"He cares very deeply about the people there. He served in the military there, went back from time to time to offer security services and so forth to people there. You can imagine how I felt when I found out that he was one of the two former Navy SEALS killed in Benghazi on September 11th."

The events in Benghazi have become a charged issue in the campaign, as Obama defends himself against charges that the consulate was poorly protected.

The attack resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, the first ambassador killed in the line duty in three decades. Three other Americans were killed, including two former U.S. Navy SEALs working as security contractors.

The Romney campaign later confirmed to reporters that the man Romney met at that party in La Jolla, CA, several years ago was Doherty, of Winchester, Mass.

A neighbor of Romney's reached out to the candidate last week to notify Romney of the coincidence. Doherty's sister said the campaign had notified her family that Romney would speak about the late SEAL, and the family set up a foundation in his honor in anticipation of the mention.

President Barack Obama is proposing that American taxpayers spend about $1.55 billion on aid to Egypt and another $1.5 million – not billion - on aid to Libya in the fiscal year that starts on Oct. 1, which would be the same amount allocated for Egypt in the current fiscal year, and a decline of about $1 million in Libyan aid.

Carolyn Kaster / AP

President Barack Obama, accompanied by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaks during a Transfer of Remains Ceremony, Friday, Sept. 14, 2012, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md.

The attacks this week on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, have caused some members of Congress to question whether taxpayers’ money is being well spent.

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The morning after the Benghazi attack, which resulted in the deaths of four Americans (including Ambassador Christopher Stevens), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said many Americans were asking, “How could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction? This question reflects just how complicated and, at times, how confounding the world can be.”

But she said the attack was the work of “a small and savage group – not the people or Government of Libya.”

As “complicated” and “confounding” as American engagement in Egypt and Libya might be, Sen. Rand Paul, R- Ky., took to the Senate floor Thursday to offer a simple response to the events: either halting or putting tight restrictions on the flow of U.S. aid to not only Egypt and Libya, but to Yemen and Pakistan as well.

Paul offered an amendment that would require the governments of all those countries to cooperate with investigations of the attacks on U.S. embassies in Yemen and Egypt and the consulate in Benghazi and turn over those who planned or took part in any of those attacks to U.S. custody.

(Paul also wants the Pakistani government to release from prison Dr. Shakil Afridi, who helped the U.S. to locate Osama Bin Laden.) 

The amendment has not been voted on by the Senate.

“The American people are tired of this,” Paul said. “Our Treasury is bare. There is a multitude of reasons why we should not continue to send good money after bad.”

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He added, “Not one penny more for Libya or Egypt or Pakistan until they act as our allies. Some say we have to keep sending it. Fine, let’s send it when they act as our allies. Let’s send it when they start behaving as civilized nations and come to their senses.”

Jessica Rinaldi / Reuters

Senator John Kerry, D-Ma., addresses the final session of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina September 6, 2012.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D- Mass., responded: “Whatever happened to the great commitment of the conservative movement in America to freedom and democracy and to help it develop? Just turn our back on it and pull out the aid? What the heck - because we don’t think they are civilized?”

Kerry warned that “unscrupulous people (who) we all know have hated us for a long time” would “love to get the upper hand” in all those countries and Paul’s amendment might help them do that.

As far as Libya is concerned, Karim Mezran, adjunct professor of Middle East Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said the actual dollar amount of U.S. aid matters far less than the symbolism of supporting a pro-Western, pro-U.S. government. “Do you stand with a regularly elected government which the U.S. and the Europeans helped bring to power, or do you allow it to sink by withdrawing support?” Mezran asked.

The foreign aid numbers make it clear that Egypt is a far bigger matter than Libya.

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According to the Congressional Research Service, between 1948 and 2011, the United States gave Egypt $71.6 billion in foreign aid. In the past fiscal year, Egypt ranked fifth among countries receiving U.S. foreign aid money, after Israel, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

For the fiscal year which begins on Oct, 1, Obama is requesting $1.55 billion in aid to Egypt: $1.3 billion in military aid and $250 million in economic aid.

To put that number in perspective, the federal government spends about $1.5 billion a day on Medicare.