(Reuters)
DIPLOMATIC GESTURE: President Obama yesterday names Sen. John Kerry to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton (left) as secretary of state, a nomination expected to fly through Senate confirmation hearings. (
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President Obama confirmed Washington’s worst-kept secret yesterday when he nominated Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state.
Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and a valued aide during the president’s re-election campaign, is expected to face little opposition from his Senate colleagues during confirmations hearings.
But Kerry was Obama’s second choice.
His first choice, UN Ambassador Susan Rice, sparked a wave of protests among Capitol Hill Republicans over her handling of the response to the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.
Republican lawmakers were livid over Rice’s initial insistence that the attack in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was sparked by a protest and not an organized terror strike.
Rice ultimately took her name out of the running, opening the door for Kerry. White House aides later hinted that Obama was turning to Kerry even before Rice withdrew.
Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War vet and the son of a diplomat, has been chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee for the past six years.
“He is not going to need a lot of on-the-job training,” Obama said, standing alongside Kerry at the White House announcement. “Few individuals know as many presidents and prime ministers or grasp our foreign policies as firmly as John Kerry.”
As foreign relations committee chair, Kerry has been helping to form US policy abroad for years.
He was an early advocate — before Obama — of an international “no-fly zone” over Libya in 2011 and among the first US lawmakers to call for Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak to leave power as pro-democracy protests grew.
Republicans, including Arizona Sen. John McCain, have said they would back Kerry’s nomination.
That would create an opening in the Senate with a special election expected in Massachusetts to fill the seat next spring.
Recent polls show that state’s junior senator, Republican Scott Brown — whose term expires at the end of the year — would run strongly in a special election. Kerry’s seat has been safely Democratic since he first won it in 1984.
The bipartisan praise for Kerry was in sharp contrast to GOP attacks on him in 2004, when he was Democratic presidential nominee.
Clinton, who is recovering from a concussion sustained in a fall, did not attend the White House event, but issued a statement saying: “John Kerry has been tested — in war, in government, and in diplomacy. Time and again, he has proven his mettle.”
Kerry would join a national-security team in flux, with Obama expected to choose a new defense secretary and director of the Central Intelligence Agency. With