Friday, November 30, 2012

Why they're after Rice

As I suspected. The Republicans have an ulterior motive for using nonsensical conspiracy theories about Benghazi to prevent Rice from becoming Secretary of State: They favor John Kerry for the job.
Gone are the criticisms of Mr. Kerry as a waffler who tried to have it both ways on the Iraq war and the caricature of him as a windsurfing symbol of privileged East Coast liberalism. Instead, Mr. Kerry, a Democrat, is depicted as a deeply knowledgeable statesman who would breeze through confirmation on his way to Foggy Bottom. 
I think the world of John Kerry; always have. (Yes, yes -- I already know that you disagree.) But the GOP favors him for reasons differing from mine. They like the idea of a Democratic senator resigning his seat. This is all about getting Scott Brown back in.

About Benghazi: Some Republicans really believe all of the paranoid horsecrap they've been saying, while others have used a ginned-up controversy in a sneaky, disingenuous fashion. From day one, the Obama administration has always made clear that the attack on the embassy was a pre-planned assault by a group armed with heavy weaponry. In previous posts, I've cited news stories proving that point. At the same time, it appears that there was also a spontaneous local demonstration against the Innocence of Muslims video, and that this demonstration provided the attackers with cover.

When the CIA gives conflicting information about an event, it's always fair to presume that they have received conflicting information from their sources. Such things happen. Nothing about this is very puzzling.

A moment's thought should tell you that Obama had no motive to hush up a terrorist attack, since rallying the country against terrorists is always good electoral politics. The people trying to cobble together a Benghazi conspiracy theory are loons who sincerely believe that Obama is a secret Al Qaeda sympathizer. Because, y'know, he's really a Moooze-lim.

Back to Rice: There is a legitimate argument against her, because her investments contain a potential conflict of interest.
Rice would bring to making decisions regarding the Keystone XL pipeline: Rice and her husband own “at least $1.25 million worth of stock in four of Canada’s eight leading oil producers,” including Enbridge, the “oil company extracting the highly toxic tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada’s boreal forest”; “major holdings” of between $300,000 and $600,000 in TransCanada; “holdings between $5.0 to $11.25 million dollars in the Royal Bank of Canada” and other Canadian financial institutions funding the pipeline project.
One should point out that a lobbyist for TransCanada also had uncomfortably close ties to Hillary Clinton.

So the question before us comes to this: If not Rice, and if not Kerry -- then who should Obama pick? 

Tom Donlilon has been mentioned -- but his background as a former officer for Fannie Mae would open up still another can of worms. Colin Powell would be an interesting choice in many ways, but the WMD fiasco will always work against him.

Wesley Clark? Just sayin'....

The ideal choice would be Bill Clinton. But he'd never go for it.

12 comments:

Trojan Joe said...

Joe, some flotsam in the Internet stream said that Al Gore was on the long list for Secretary of State; but when I tried to retrieve it, all my Internet searches for news stories about "Al Gore" came up with snarky stories from Fox about inventing the Internet, stoking fear about the weather and exaggerating the viewership on his cable network. (Perhaps in the future you could write a blog post about the political bias in Internet search algorithms. For instance, if you search for general info on the JFK assassination, the first several returns are from conspiracy deniers. And Wikipedia is awfully cagey on that subject too.)

RedDragon said...

I'm with you Joe. Bill Clinton would be the ideal choice but can you imagine the vapors the "Clinton Haters" would have over that choice?

Not only would the GOP have a meltdown, you'd have the folks over at "Daily Kooks" and sites just as foul spewing their their tired "conspiracy theories" and copious amounts of "verbal diarrhea!"

My goodness. Those idiots would have a f**king meltdown!

Anonymous said...

I actually read that Jon Huntsman had been suggested as a possible SOS contender. Bill Clinton would be an outstanding candidate but frankly I don't think he could survive the travel schedule that Hillary just put in. And he has his foundation that he's committed to [though I'm sure he'd make exceptions for Hillary in the WH :0)].

Kerry would be be a good solid candidate for the position but the GOP's love affair with Kerry at the moment is laughable. They just want his seat vacated in Massachusetts. I don't know who they think they're kidding.

Susan Rice is more than qualified for the job. Calling the woman stupid, without the proper credentials or lacking in decision-making skills is highly insulting and makes the naysayers look like clowns.

If every Washington politician who misspoke on a Sunday Talk show were fired, DC would be a ghost town. I agree that Rice would need to divest of Transcanada holdings before taking the spot. But that's doable. The rest is pure crap.

Peggysue

Joseph Cannon said...

Hadn't thought about Huntsman. Not a bad choice! That would make Obama Obama look bipartisan even if he (as I hope) takes a tougher stance with Boehner.

Anonymous said...

Huntsman would make a lot of sense. Bipartisan, he's actually really smart and has a track record in Asia, where a tiny bit of stuff is going on right now. He's out of office, so no vacancies to fill.

syborg

Anonymous said...

Or here's another idea. Float that curmudgeon McCain's name for SoS. Maybe that will get him to STFU

syborg

Anonymous said...

I agree, Joe. I think Huntsman would be a really interesting choice. The man has diplomatic and executive experience. He was the best of the GOP's choices in 2012 so, of course, he was kicked to the curb early by the crazies. Although in truth, he did not run a very effective campaign from what I saw and read.

But for SOS? Definitely interesting and ballsy for the Administration. Which means it's not likely to happen.

Peggysue

Grung_e_Gene said...

David Petraus? Damn! I always get these pop quizzes wrong!

Ken Hoop said...

Dennis Kucinich would be among the very few acceptable appointments; certainly not Kerry.

Ken Hoop said...

Red Dragon, why do you believe conspiracy theories are necessary against the guy who commited war crimes against Serbia?

Bob Harrison said...

Thank God no one's talking up Lieberweasel.

ralphb said...

If you want to appoint a republican, make it Chuck Hagel. He already is co-chairman of Obama's advisory council and was loudly against the war in Iraq from the jump.

He would make a solid SecState or SecDef, assuming Panetta leaves.