Rice 2 at State

It is widely believed that President Obama is set on nominating U. N. Ambassador Susan Rice to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State -- despite the childish, outspoken opposition from Sen. John McCain and others.

New York magazine's John Heilemann predicts she will be confirmed and gives five reasons he's so sure of that:

1.  Because every piece of available evidence is that Obama really, really wants her in that position.   In addition to the similarities of name and race to Rice 1 (Condi) at State, Susan Rice enjoys the same kind of close relationship with Obama that Condi did with George W. Bush.   She has long been part of his inner circle of advisers on foreign policy, and they share trust and a world view.

2.  She is imminently qualified for the job.    A Rhodes Scholar with an Oxford Ph.D. in international relations, Rice was part of the National Security team in the Clinton administration and then Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.   Before being named Ambassador to the U.N., she was a scholar at the Brookings Institute.    In addition to her expertise and experience in international relations, she is known to be effective in negotiating coalitions to get things done.

3.  The opposition to her appointment focuses on one Sunday morning of talk shows in which she gave the Obama administration's preliminary report about the terrorist attack on our diplomats in Benghazi, Libya.    This is ludicrous and obviously an excuse for the real reasons (below).   Rice simply reported the latest unclassified intelligence briefing she had been given at that early moment in the investigation of what happened.   She should not be blamed for the fact that later public information proved her statements incorrect.  In fact, it's now becoming clear that our intelligence knew differently at the time, but that information was classified.  McCain knows full well that she could not have reported classified information.

4.  "Because McCain is being a jack-ass, and Obama is sick of it."   That's Heilemann's wording.  The aging and petulant loser, McCain, is known widely for letting his personal piques distort his good sense -- and he often winds up looking like a jack-ass.  He knows that some of Obama's best attack lines against him in the 2008 race were straight from the mind of Susan Rice.   Besides, she is a stand-in for Obama, himself.   McCain's a sore loser.

5.  "Because if McCain insists on pressing the fight, Obama will win."   Heilemann says Obama will win.   Democrats have a 53-47 majority in the senate and would need only six Republicans to vote with them to kill a filibuster.   Besides, Harry Reid may very well find the courage to push through a change in the filibuster rules before then.

I find nothing to disagree with here.   I haven't known much about Susan Rice before now, except that she was supposed to be very bright, very knowledgeable, and an Obama insider.  She has kept a pretty low profile as U.N. ambassador but has reportedly been very effective behind the scenes.   It sounds like she would be an excellent choice -- and well worth the fight to defeat John McCain once again.

Ralph

PS:  After writing this, I read that McCain was back-tracking on the Sunday morning news shows, saying that he would consider voting for her if she gives a full account of the whole sequence and explains herself.   Later he went even further and said that his quarrel was really with Obama, not Rice.   I guess his advisers read the writing on the wall, and they're now trying to put lipstick on the pouty pig.