Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney may have delivered control of the House to the Democrats by putting the Medicare issue center-stage in the November election and selecting Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his running mate, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in an interview aired Sunday. 
 
 "We have been saying there are three important issues in this campaign. And in alphabetical order, they are Medicare, Medicare, Medicare. On August 11th, when Governor Romney chose Ryan, that was the pivotal day," the California Democrat said on CNN's "State of the Union." "That is the day things really changed." 
 
 "We were on a path. I would have said to you then we were dead even. Well, the momentum is very much with us, the Medicare issue in this campaign," Pelosi said. "We have the message, We have the messengers. We have the money. We have the mobilization. We have a very excellent chance to take back the House." 
 
 Ryan's budget proposal calls for converting part of the Medicare program to a government subsidy that would help senior citizens buy private insurance. Republicans say seniors would still have the choice of remaining in the traditional government-run Medicare program, but Democrats view the GOP plan as a transition that would shift future cost increases in medical care to seniors. Romney says he has not fully adopted Ryan's plan. 
 
 Read more about: Medicare, Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan, 2012 Elections ||||| U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said on Sunday that the attacks on U.S. posts abroad "may indeed" continue and that there's "no predicting" how it will play out. 
 
 "We've seen in the past outrage and unfortunately violent outrage which is condemnable and never justified. It may indeed occur in other circumstances," Rice said on "Fox News Sunday." "But there's no predicting exactly what the trajectory of this is. Obviously the last several days have been somewhat better, but we are very vigilant." 
 
 Rice said that the overseas unrest at U.S. posts, including the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that left ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others dead last week are the result of an anti-Muslim movie trailer - not an attack on U.S. policy. 
 
 "This is not an expression of hostility in the broadest sense towards the United States or to U.S. policy. It's proximately a reaction to this video and it's a hateful video -- that had nothing to do with the United States -- which we find disgusting and reprehensible," Rice said. 
 
 Read more about: Susan Rice, United Nations, Libya, Chris Stevens ||||| Sen. John McCain on Sunday defended Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's criticism of a Cairo embassy statement seeming apologetic for an anti-Islamic film trailer that some say sparked last week's attacks at overseas U.S. posts, saying the media's coverage of it was "saddening." 
 
 "If you look at the statement that was given by the American embassy, and later disavowed by the [Obama] administration itself - of course, that was a very weak statement. This is - it was a semi-apology," the Republican senator from Arizona said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "We shouldn't be apologizing for freedom of speech. We should be saying we demand freedom of speech for these people. That's one of the fundamentals of democracy. So, the lack of symmetry on the part of the media in this campaign on this issue and on Medicare and others, it's just saddening to me." 
 
 The embassy published an online statement last week: "The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions." The Obama administration then distanced itself from the statement, saying it was not cleared for release. 
 
 “I'm outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It's disgraceful that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks,” Romney said last week in a release criticizing the Cairo statement. 
 
 Read more about: Barack Obama, John McCain, Egypt, Mitt Romney, Libya ||||| Sen. John McCain said Sunday that there's "no doubt" the attacks last week on U.S. posts overseas were "extremists," a result of what he said was America's foreign policy of "disengagement." 
 
 "Most people don't bring rocket-propelled grenades and heavy weapons to a demonstration. That was an act of terror, and for anyone to disagree with that fundamental fact I think is really ignoring the facts," McCain said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "Now, how long it was planned and who was involved, but there was no doubt there was extremists and there's no doubt they were using heavy weapons and they used pretty good tacticts: indirect fire, direct fire, and obviously they were successful." 
 
 He said terrorists are acting due to a change in U.S. foreign policy. 
 
 "Prior to 9/11, we had a policy of containment. Then after 9/11, it was a confrontation with the terrorists and Al Qaeda. Now it's ddisengangment," he said. "We're leaving Iraq. We're leaving Afghanistan. We're leaving the area. The people in the area are having to adjust and they believe the United States is weak, and they are taking appropriate action." 
 
 He said that terrorists used an anti-Islamic film trailer to fuel the attacks, but that the attacks were preplanned. 
 
 "Let's point out this wasn't a video that caused this. It's a fight, a struggle in the Arab world between the Islamists and the forces of moderation. And they want America disengaged," McCain said. 
 
 He added: "And by the way, I predict to you there will be many, many videos that will be out there. It was the Islamists, radical Islamists, advertising and pushing this objectionable, hateful video to incite the forces that would then bring about their assumption of power. That's what this is all about." 
 
 Read more about: John McCain, Terrorism, Libya
– John McCain today took the Benghazi consulate attack that killed Chris Stevens and laid the blame squarely at the door of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., blasting the Obama administration's policy of diplomatic "disengagement" as ultimately responsible, reports Politico. "Prior to 9/11, we had a policy of containment. Then after 9/11, it was a confrontation with the terrorists and al-Qaeda. Now it's disengagement," he said. "We're leaving Iraq. We're leaving Afghanistan." Extremists in the region now perceive America as weak, and they executed "an act of terror" to take advantage. "This wasn't a video that caused this," he said. Elsewhere around the Sunday spectrum, as per Politico: Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., on the attack: "The countries of the Middle East believe that there is a disengagement policy by the United States and that lack of leadership there—or at least clarity on what our position is—is causing problems. If we all decide to rally around the video as the problem, we are going to make a serious mistake." Susan Rice on the Mideast violence: "We've seen in the past outrage, and unfortunately violent outrage, which is condemnable and never justified. It may indeed occur in other circumstances. But there's no predicting exactly what the trajectory of this is. Obviously the last several days have been somewhat better, but we are very vigilant." McCain backs Mitt Romney's embassy criticism: "We shouldn't be apologizing for freedom of speech. That's one of the fundamentals of democracy. So, the lack of symmetry on the part of the media in this campaign on this issue and on Medicare and others, it's just saddening to me." Nancy Pelosi on Dems' chances of taking back the House: "There are three important issues in this campaign. And in alphabetical order, they are Medicare, Medicare, Medicare. When Governor Romney chose Ryan, that was the pivotal day. I would have said to you then we were dead even. Well, the momentum is very much with us, the Medicare issue in this campaign. We have a very excellent chance to take back the House."