Fox News has seized on what it believes is a new angle to continue making an issue of the Obama administration's response to the Libya terrorist attack. Discussing President Obama's news conference on Wednesday, Fox treated Obama's statement that the White House chose Ambassador Susan Rice to discuss the attack publicly as new and “significant,” claiming Obama's admission is “one of the most important parts” of what he said during his press conference.

It's unclear why Fox believes Obama's statement is significant considering Rice's position as a top official in the Obama administration.

In her capacity as one of the United States' top diplomats -- she was nominated by President Obama as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in January 2009 -- Rice is a member of the Obama administration whose job is to speak for the White House on government decisions and policy.

Not only that, but the White House's reasons for why it specifically asked Rice to discuss the situation in Benghazi publicly have been known for at least a month. The Washington Post reported on October 15: “The White House has said that it turned to Rice to make the administration's case on the Benghazi attack because it made sense to have a top diplomat speak to the loss of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens.”

On September 16, five days after the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Rice appeared on the Sunday talk shows to talk about what the administration knew about the attack. In the interviews, Rice made clear that definitive conclusions would only follow from an administration investigation, which she stressed was under way.

On Wednesday, during his first press conference since being re-elected, Obama addressed Republican criticism of Rice, saying:

OBAMA: [L]et me say specifically about Susan Rice, she has done exemplary work. She has represented the United States and our interests in the United Nations with skill and professionalism and toughness and grace. As I've 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.

If Senator [John] McCain and Senator [Lindsay] Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me. And I'm happy to have that discussion with them. But for them to go after the U.N. ambassador, who had nothing to do with Benghazi and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received and to besmirch her reputation is outrageous.

Discussing his comments on Fox News' America Live, however, host Megyn Kelly and Fox contributor Kirsten Powers expressed surprise at Obama's statement that Rice's appearances on the Sunday talk shows were “at the request of the White House.”

Powers claimed the admission was “probably one of the most important parts” of what Obama said, “which is admitting that the White House is the one who told her what to say and that this did come from the White House, which had been mostly been speculated upon.”

Kelly went on to say that “the reason she's been taking such incoming fire is because now according to President Obama, he told her to. He's the one who put her in the line of fire.”

And yet, a day ago, Kelly told viewers that the reason Rice has been repeatedly criticized is because “she's the one who went on all the Sunday talk shows and told us that everything that happened in Benghazi was linked to this video, which we now know was not the case.”

Indeed, Fox has led a sustained campaign against Rice, alleging that she made inaccurate statements about the attack when in fact her remarks were in line with assessments from the intelligence community.

Later on America Live, Kelly again brought up Obama's statement about Rice, asking Fox senior White House correspondent Ed Henry his thoughts about this “explicit admission from the president.” Henry replied that “it's significant” but “not surprising -- it just hadn't been said by the president yet perhaps.”

He then seemed to undermine the significance of Obama's statement by saying: “But whenever a top official goes on the Sunday talk shows, they're being put out there by the White House.”