http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...part-rice-to-take-over-national-security-role Obama to Pick Rice for National Security Post, Power for UN President Barack Obama will name United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice as his national security adviser and nominate Samantha Power, his former human rights adviser and an outspoken advocate of U.S. intervention in foreign crises, to succeed Rice. Tom Donilon, the current White House national security adviser, plans to leave the post in early July after more than four years. The shakeup in the president’s team would put Rice, a target of Republican criticism, in charge of the administration’s national-security machinery. Rice doesn’t need confirmation by the Senate, while Power will. Obama’s choices of Rice and Power reflect his willingness to take on Republican critics in his second term. Both women have often clashed with Republicans, especially in Rice’s confrontations over her explanations about the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya. “You’re going to have some really powerful people in these positions who know him well and speak for him,” said Tommy Vietor, a former spokesman for the National Security Council who left the White House in March. “It’s a powerful signal of very senior women in this administration. Neither got the job because of their gender, but their gender sends an important message not just to women in the U.S. but around the globe.” 2014 Elections The announcement may also underscore a political shift by the president to challenge congressional Republicans more directly as both sides prepare for the 2014 midterm elections. Yesterday, Obama named three judicial nominees to vacancies on U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and essentially dared Senate Republicans to filibuster their confirmation, accusing the opposition party of political obstructionism. On Capitol Hill, the nation’s top military leaders clashed with female senators over how to improve the military’s handling of sexual assault investigations and prosecutions. A White House official, who asked for anonymity to speak prior to an official statement, confirmed the changes, which the president will announce at 2:15 p.m. today. Rice’s comments on the Sunday television talk shows after the Benghazi attack -- in which she said the attack that killed four Americans had grown out of protests over an anti-Islam video -- made her a target of Republicans. The controversy prompted her to withdraw from consideration to succeed Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, a post that requires Senate confirmation unlike the national security adviser. ‘I Disagree’ “Obviously I disagree w/POTUS appointment of Susan Rice as Nat’l Security Adviser, but I’ll make every effort to work w/ her on imp’t issues,” Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said in a message posted on Twitter, referring to the president of the U.S.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/06/obama-susan-rice-benghazi/65916/ Obama's 'Defiant' Tapping of Susan Rice Says He Thinks He Won Benghazi Again Republicans wanted a do-over on Benghazi. They got it, but lost the second time around. Now President Obama is making Susan Rice his national security adviser, even though what she said on five Sunday talk shows about the cause of the attack on an American diplomatic outpost in Libya has been the focus of Republican scrutiny for almost nine months. Obama "was embittered by the attacks against Rice to an extent unmatched by nearly any other episode in his fight-filled presidency," Politico's Glenn Thrush says. Picking Rice is a "defiant gesture to Republicans," The New York Times' Mark Landler writes. It also seems to indicate that the White House thinks Benghazi is kind of over. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/rand-paul-susan-rice-92264.html#ixzz2VMeRCaGl Rand Paul ‘can’t imagine’ promoting Susan Rice Sen. Rand Paul on Wednesday bashed U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice amid news that she will become President Barack Obama’s national security adviser. “I can’t imagine, one, that we would be keeping Ambassador Rice in any significant position, much less promoting her to an important position,” Paul (R-Ky.) said on Fox’s “America’s Newsroom.” “How will [the administration] ever have the authority for people to believe what they’re saying, when they’re promoting someone who directly and deliberately misled the public over Benghazi?”
The cynic in me says that if there was ever a sphere in which deliberate misdirection is an asset, it'd be in national security. Unfortunately, if anyone was misled, it was not because Rice is some kind of propaganda genius. She read from the talking points she was given.
