Kerry defends Rice against attacks A top Republican called Friday for U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice to resign over her "misleading" statements on the Libya terror attack -- escalating a brewing battle between lawmakers and the administration over the changing narrative. He was referring to her repeated claims during interviews on the Sunday after the attack that the strike was a "spontaneous" reaction to protests in Cairo over an anti-Islam film -- though officials now acknowledge it was a coordinated terror attack. And I don't see how she didn't know how ... that information was wrong. He called for a "full investigation." King's statement, the first call by a top-ranking lawmaker for a resignation in connection with the controversy, triggered a swift response from Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who leapt to Rice's defense. Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was "deeply disturbed by efforts to find the politics instead of finding the facts in this debate." "Everyone who cares about the four fallen Americans in Benghazi would do well to take a deep breath about what happened and allow Secretary Clinton's proactive, independent investigation to proceed," he said in a statement. I'm particularly troubled by calls for Ambassador Rice's resignation. She is a remarkable public servant for whom the liberation of the Libyan people has been a personal issue and a public mission. She's an enormously capable person who has represented us at the United Nations with strength and character. King's statement, though, was a sign he perhaps wasn't satisfied by the claim by the nation's top intelligence official Friday that administration officials who initially said the attack was spontaneous did so based on intelligence officials' guidance. The statement by Shawn Turner, spokesman for Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, was put out late Friday -- the statement appeared to take the blame for the confusion, and also marked a complete reversal from the administration's initial claims about the origin of the strike. In the midst of the changing story, King and other Republicans have complained that they were misled by the administration. They pointed to briefings as well as Rice's Sunday show comments.