Posted on 11/17/2012 12:10:43 PM PST by neverdem
President Obama had a rare “bring-it-on” moment when ABC News’s Jonathan Karl asked him about threats by Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham to block the confirmation of Susan Rice, should he nominate her for secretary of state.
“If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me,” Obama said Wednesday at his East Room news conference, defending his U.N. ambassador from charges that she misled the public about attacks on Americans in Libya.
“For them to go after the U.N. ambassador . . . and to besmirch her reputation, is outrageous. And, you know, we’re after an election now.”
It was reminiscent of his put-down of McCain in early 2010, when at a health-care forum he reminded his former opponent: “The election’s over.”
Obama’s over-the-top defense of Rice was surprising, particularly in contrast to the president’s relative indifference in accepting the resignation of CIA chief David Petraeus, one of the most capable public servants. And it was disappointing, because McCain, even if wrong on the particulars, is right about Rice. She is ill-equipped to be the nation’s top diplomat for reasons that have little to do with Libya.
Even in a town that rewards sharp elbows and brusque personalities, Rice has managed to make an impressive array of enemies — on Capitol Hill, in Foggy Bottom and abroad. Particularly in comparison with the other person often mentioned for the job, Sen. John Kerry, she can be a most undiplomatic diplomat, and there likely aren’t enough Republican or Democratic votes in the Senate to confirm her.
Back when she was an assistant secretary of state during the Clinton administration, she appalled colleagues by flipping her middle finger at Richard Holbrooke during a meeting with senior staff at the State Department, according to witnesses...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Wow, Dana Milbank is now racist and sexist. Stalinists eat their own, as many of Stalins’ comrades found out when they got the bullet in the neck.
I agree, I don’t think it’s going to be Rice for SOS, although I’m not sure it will be Kerry. Obama wants Kerry to go to Defense to PO the military and show them how much contempt he has for our forces.
“When are we going to get a white guy as Secretary of State?”
Haven’t had one since Warren Christopher, but he was an idiot.
I was hopeful that John Bolton would be the guy in a Romney administration, but we weren’t blessed with regime change.
“Warren Christopher, but he was an idiot.”
I don’t remember that. What I do remember is he was pretty old and his eyes were always half lidded as if he was asleep. He was ridiculed for this the by the mass media. He was very normal compared to the mutants in Bill Clinton’s cabinet such as Janet Reno and that midget Donna Shalala
Even in a town that rewards sharp elbows and brusque personalities, Rice has managed to make an impressive array of enemies — on Capitol Hill, in Foggy Bottom and abroad. Particularly in comparison with the other person often mentioned for the job, Sen. John Kerry, she can be a most undiplomatic diplomat, and there likely aren’t enough Republican or Democratic votes in the Senate to confirm her.
Oh, there will be a 100% aye vote from donks in the senate,,,guaranteed. Even if they believe she is totally unqualified, they will vote for her. Why? Because she is black. ANY AND ALL opposition or criticism of a black liberal is automatically racist. Libs have used the skin color card so much they have painted themselves into a corner. They will be forced to support her.
Yeah Christopher was an idiot. He was undersecretary to Cy Vance in the Carter administration, and was on the wrong side of most Cold War issues of the day. To the point where Max Kampelmann and Jeane Kirkpatrick broke with Democrats like Christopher and formed the national security team for Reagan’s first term, whose policies defeated communism.
Clinton ignored all this and stacked his administration with the handmaiden’s of defeat, including the likes of Christopher, Lake, Talbott and Albright, and rather than ignore or appease communism, they ignored nd appeased aislamic jihadists in the nineties and gave us 9/11 for their deriliction.
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