Sen. John McCain was so busy Wednesday attacking Susan Rice over statements she made in the aftermath of the murderous attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that he skipped an official briefing on the attack. While he was in high dudgeon before the cameras together with Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Kelly Ayotte making threats to filibuster the rumored nomination of Rice to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and calling for a select investigative committee to look into the matter, the classified, closed-door briefing was being held by a Senate committee on which he sits.

When Sen. Joe Lieberman emerged from that two-hour briefing of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, he said there was no need for a select investigative committee. Another member of the Homeland committee, Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, said in an interview:

“I do not see the benefit of creating a brand new committee when we already have the Senate’s chief oversight committee, plus the Intelligence Committee, examining this very important matter.”

Obviously, for McCain, the benefit might be the possibility he could be the embittered, fist-pounding star of any select committee investigation, a role he would have to cede to another under the current arrangement. If he could pummel Rice over what he and others have unconvincingly claimed to be her misleading statements in the aftermath of the Benghazi attack, it would apparently give him some sort of twisted pleasure. But it would serve the nation exactly how?