The GOP – John McCain and Lindsey Graham in particular – are sadly mistaken if they think this is the end of Susan Rice.
The mistake they made while launching an attack on the “theoretical” appointment of U.S. Ambassador Rice to the position Secretary of State, replacing Hillary Clinton, was to challenge her intelligence. Maybe McCain forgot he was the same guy who used his intellect to choose Sarah Palin as his running mate. Maybe in his rush to “swift boat” this sister, he didn’t get the memo to check her stats.
Susan Rice is a Stanford Phi Beta Kappa, Truman Scholar, Rhodes Scholar, and Ph.D from Oxford – not to mention the class valedictorian and starting point guard at Washington D.C.’s elite National Cathedral School. Rice isn’t just some Ivy League Obama ideologue that the president was hoping could help his hoop squad.
In meeting rooms all over district, she is known to be highly assertive, strong-willed and brutally honest. Before serving in the Obama Administration, she also served under President Clinton on the National Security Council and as an Assistant Secretary of State. The truth of the matter is that Rice is a diplomat of the highest order and was more than qualified for the position she was rumored to be in line for.
But, if they think Rice is just going to go home as a result, join a quilting bee and watch the Guiding Light all day. They really never knew her in the first place.
In the role of the “good soldier,” Rice wrote to the President asking that her name be excluded from process to seeking a Secretary of State, “the confirmation process would be lengthy, disruptive, and costly – to you and to our most pressing national and international priorities. That trade-off is simply not worth it to our country.”
At best, the GOP attack on Rice was a red herring, a straw man, and sour grapes. At worst, it was racism, sexism and intellectualism. Mark this down as another thing the Republican Party will have to answer for in the near future.
Either way, they will be seeing this gifted Black woman again. Yes, she withdrew her name from consideration for her dream job “this time around” but, if her detractors are popping champagne bottles to her defeat for a nomination that she had not been nominated for in the first place, their celebration may be short lived.
Somebody like Susan Rice didn’t get to where she’s at by being weak.
While still serving admirably in her role as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, don’t be surprised to see her in the role of National Security Advisor (a position that doesn’t need Senate approval). We may even see her in 2016 at the highest levels of the presidential administration of a Hillary Clinton, Deval Patrick, or somebody with the last name of Kennedy. But either way, they will be seeing Susan Rice again.
