I’m trying not to think too hard about this. Is it double reverse psychology? If the Republicans truly want John Kerry to leave the Senate to serve as the next Secretary of State, surely they know that saying as much only makes that outcome less likely, right? This is especially true when it is coupled with unfair attacks against UN Ambassador Susan Rice. Speaking just for me, I originally wanted Kerry to get the job, but I am now feeling like it should go to Rice. The only reason I feel that way is because I don’t want the Republicans to be rewarded for their bad behavior or for Rice to lose out on a post she’s earned and that she was otherwise going to get. Are the Republicans smart enough to know that Democrats will respond to their antics in this way? Are we being played into abandoning Kerry? Despite all their words of support, are the Republicans looking to screw their colleague from Massachusetts?
No. I don’t think they are that clever. I think they just don’t like Susan Rice. Why ever could that be?
Senate goopers fear their teatard base and primary challenges. They’ve seen what happens if they show the slightest cooperation and moderation.
Bingo!
They fear calls from dittoheads to their offices after Rush goes on a rampage more than doing the people’s business.
So…they talk up John Kerry?
They are not afraid. The GOP sen. are talking to themselves like the rest of the GOP. In their world there was no election…its like they wake up in Ground Hog Day every morning.
KoolAid time again.
The right has convinced themselves that they could get Scotty re-elected to Kerry’s seat, if they can get Kerry’s seat emptied. Ain’t gonna happen. Among other things Mike Capuano is chomping at the bit to move up and Mumbles will be happy to oblige him.
Like I said, the right is drinking their own koolaid again.
I understand that the Teahadists are stupid, but don’t they realize that Mr. Male Model was an accidental Senator to begin with? And that a Martha Coakley-like candidate isn’t likely to happen again?
No, Calvin, they don’t. They firmly believe that Scotty is beloved of the entire state and can beat anyone anywhere … except Elizabeth who for some reason people seem to like.
Just ask Joe from Lowell. The story going round now ist that people are just so disgusted at having to vote for RINO’s like Romney they’d just as soon vote liberal. By 61%. Because, you know, its Massachusetts. Not like we’re liberal or anything.
Think of it this way: Scott Brown is the only chance they have of taking a Massachusetts Senate seat over the next couple of decades.
Even if it’s not a great chance, what’s the downside for them? John Kerry’s seat ends up being taken by another Democrat? Even if they happens, they’ve lost nothing.
Not so, Joe.
Right now Kerry looks like someone who might possibly retire and not seek another term. I’m not saying he will, mind you but talk of a “higher calling” usually preceeds “my family comes first” or the ubiquitous “piss on all y’all”. In 2014. An off year. If there are bad economic news cycles during that year it isn’t hard to see a lowturnout election that goes wrong. Giving Capuano, or for that matter any semi-popular Democrat a 2 year head start doesn’t seem to be the smartest move on the checker board.
But then, we are talking MassHole Tea Party here. They’ve never been accused of been tea-sipping physicists in the near past, either.
I read somewhere that Martha Coakley wanted to run.
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of either Rice or Panetta as DNI and the other at Secretary of Defense.
It’s time to lower the profile of the Secretary of State by appointing career foreign service William Burns and have the President front the foreign policy role.
And in the filibuster reforms, stripping the filibuster from appointment “advise and consent” actions. The President deserves to appoint the team he wants in his second term.
BTW, there is scuttlebutt that Chris Gregoire will replace Salazar at Interior.
Fascinating idea about William Burns. To have someone who came up through the ranks in the State Dept. as SoS would be a welcome change IMHO. I would still prefer to have someone with more Asian and Latin America experience, but this is a solid idea.
Lawrence Eagleburger came up through the ranks to serve as Secretary of State. He was a competent, hardworking, shrewd, knowledgeable guy, even if he was conservative.
Yup, he was Acting SoS for about 4 months and appointed with 40 days left in Bush Seniors term.
I remember him with some respect as well. He was against Gulf War I for example.
the fact that she’s supported every war in the ME (minus Bush’s “surge” as I recall) and is heavily invested in http://www.onearth.org/article/susan-rice-obama-secretary-state-tar-sands-finances
It could be that they want her, on the grounds Bill Kristol made. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=bill%20kristol%20rice&source=web&cd=5&cad
rja&ved=0CE0QtwIwBA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2Frs%2F2012%2F11%2F25%2Fbill-kristol--dW4UIvFNqasyAHf4YDQBA&john-kerry-hasnt-supported-enough-wars-to-be-secretary-of-state%2F&ei
;usg=AFQjCNGK4WwfXCdiJbFW8oVWFDbWrew73A
There is the element that Ayote, McCain & Collins were the only R’s who campaigned hard, in state, for Brown.
Collins’ snide remark of Rice’s proximity in 1998 to the attacks in Africa was something Louis Goehmert might have said. That dumb.
Now reporting coming out of Rice & her husband doing business with Iran.
Clearly, overthinking the Rep motives for anything is the goal of Rep potshots at any given moment, toss in garbage to Progressives, watch them compost it. When you’re a party that left leadership a generation ago and has found its comfort zone in obstruction, the only way to be understood is through an obstruction lens.
There is the element that Ayote, McCain & Collins were the only R’s who campaigned hard, in state, for Brown.
Collins’ snide remark of Rice’s proximity in 1998 to the attacks in Africa was something Louis Goehmert might have said. That dumb.
Now reporting coming out of Rice & her husband doing business with Iran.
Clearly, overthinking the Rep motives for anything is the goal of Rep potshots at any given moment, toss in garbage to Progressives, watch them compost it. When you’re a party that left leadership a generation ago and has found its comfort zone in obstruction, the only way to be understood is through an obstruction lens.
Rats, sorry.
Ayotte has been front and center as the new and improved Lieberman for Walnuts and Lindsey.
I don’t know who in NH would be interested in her seat in the Senate but they need to start working right now as she has to be vulnerable when she is up for re-election. I am being too lazy and am relying on memory but I think she won in 2010 during the Tea surge and will be one that should have a bullseye on her back in 2016.
I am being too lazy and am relying on memory but I think she won in 2010 during the Tea surge and will be one that should have a bullseye on her back in 2016.
Yes, she’s one from 2010. That means her, along with that lunkhead Johnson from Wisconsin, should be prime pickups in 2016, given that it’s a Presidential election.
Hate and lies, that’s all the GOP has at the moment.
Pretty much everything I have read about Susan Rice, except for what Republicans are saying, has been positive. Then, yesterday a friend of mine posted an article, from an environmental site, about Rice’s investments in Canadian oil companies. Any thoughts?
http://www.onearth.org/article/susan-rice-obama-secretary-state-tar-sands-finances#.ULbAUmEp7d0.face
book
Would it be a conflict of interest?
she and her hubby have 40 million in assets.
this accounts for less than a million.
she can easily divest it if it’s a problem.
She could easily divest, but the argument I’m hearing from some on the left (environmentalists), as expressed in the linked article, is that by choosing Rice Obama is somehow signalling that he will approve the Keystone pipeline, or that Rice would be making the decision herself, which seems unlikely to me.
I think it is a DOUBLE fake out. They actually want Rice, so they say they don’t, and compliment Kerry, knowing Obama will dig in his heels, and nominate Rice. That way they get what they REALLY want.
Wait! Maybe Obama knows this. And the republicans know he knows, and so they are faking the ‘double fake’ because they want Kerry after all. It’s the very rare ‘triple fake’!
.
Never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line!
I’ve said it before, it HAS to be Rice.
Also I guess they think Scott Brown can take Kerry’s seat.
Hmmm, white man versus black woman. Whichever would a Republican prefer?
They may not like her because she’s an assertive black woman, but some State Dept. liberals dread her because she’s an egomaniac, intolerant of other opinions than hers, incurious, abrasive, brittle, and a suck-up/piss-down kind of person.
There were plenty of people saying similar things about Hillary before she took over.
I don’t think you can be Mr. Rogers and run an effective State Department.
Do we really need another war-mongering, female SOS that mostly loathes anyone in the ME that isn’t wealthy or Jewish? Rice is actually a bit worse because of her ties to the current government in Rwanda.