Obama's Susan Rice conundrum

U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice has become a willing pawn in Senate Republicans' efforts to force President Barack Obama into a costly and unnecessary fight over who will serve as his secretary of state when Hillary Clinton leaves that post in the new year. Once a trio of Republicans announced they would block Ms. Rice's confirmation for a job to which she had not been appointed, her aggressive efforts to smooth matters over have only given her opponents more opportunity to put the president in a box. Secretary of state is a position for which presidents do not typically have to use political capital, but now, at a time when Mr. Obama needs every bit of power he gained through re-election, he is being forced to expend it to defend someone he may or may not have intended to nominate in the first place.

November 29, 2012