Overcooked Rice

The Obama administration was dealt a major setback when United Nations ambassador Susan Rice withdrew her name from consideration as Secretary of State, saying that she had too much politicized opposition against her and didn't want to go through or put the country through a long, protracted Senate confirmation process.  It was comparable  to the what I call the "full Ginsburg" - not the case of William Ginsburg, Monica Lewinsky's lawyer, appearing on all five Sunday morning talk shows in one day, but the case of Douglas Ginsburg, the conservative judge who asked President Reagan to withdraw his name from consideration for the Supreme Court seat that ultimately went to Anthony Kennedy when Senate Democrats objected to his (Ginsburg's) past marijuana use.  With two exceptions: Susan Rice, unlike Ginsburg, had not even been nominated yet for anything and hadn't broken any drug laws.  All she did was offer an assessment of the Benghazi debacle authored by someone who must have been on drugs.

This development should certainly cause a run on Quaalude in Massachusetts, as John Kerry, the state's senior senator, is expected to get the top post at the State Department, necessitating a special Senate election for his seat - the third Senate election in the Bay State within four years - and likely prompting many Bay Staters (that's actually the official demonym for Massachusetts residents, folks!) to want to sleep through it.    And yes, Democrats are already fearing a comeback by outgoing Massachusetts senator Scott Brown in a special election for Kerry's seat.  Yes - the attack on Rice is part of a diabolical plot to get Cosmopolitan magazine's second most famous male centerfold (after Burt Reynolds) into the Senate seat of President Obama's second choice for Secretary of State! 

Well, probably not.  The opposition to Rice's appointment to lead the State Department is largely said to be based on racism and sexism - white men like John McCain presumably dislike black women who know more than they do - and there is undoubtedly a good deal of truth to that analysis, but it's hardly the whole story.  As I noted earlier this month, Rice is known for being blunt and caustic.  This may be why so few Democrats came out to defend her from Republican attacks.  Not only that, she's a seasoned bureaucrat who hasn't been known for showing any political savvy, at least not until she did so by bowing out of consideration for the job of Secretary of State.  In the 2008 presidential campaign, she made some negative comments about John McCain's qualifications for the Presidency as an Obama adviser, and she was Obama's chief foreign policy surrogate in the primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, who, as the current Secretary of State, has had a frosty relationship with the UN ambassador.  Though many Washington pundits don't believe that the Clintons had anything to do with Rice's fall, more than a few folks suspect that Rice's conduct during the 2008 campaign sealed her fate long ago.

John Kerry, by contrast, is a seasoned politician who, as an elected official, knows how to talk to people and ask for their support.  He has intervened for President Obama in several low-profile international assignments and, unlike Dr. Rice, is less inclined to be interventionist in other countries due to his own war experiences.  Also, he's extraordinarily worldly, speaking a variety of languages.  That's what makes him the best choice in the minds of many Washington pundits, including - so he insists - Chris Matthews.  Right.  Matthews doesn't want Kerry to be named Secretary of State because he's the most qualified choice.  He's just salivating at the prospect of covering another special Senate election in Massachusetts! 

So, all right, there were several reasons for Obama not to appoint Susan Rice Secretary of State, but her handling of the Benghazi debacle was not one of them.  And even though she's probably better off remaining in her UN ambassadorial post, it's really galling to think that Dr. Rice is being denied a promotion for her disseminating of information regarding four American deaths in Libya, when she had nothing to do with the incident or the assessment of it, while George Walker Bush's national security adviser, that other Dr. Rice, pushed for a war in Iraq that led to the subsequent deaths of 4,487 Americans . . . and got to be Secretary of State.