There is some serious cowardice going on here about John Kerry's seat.

[frazzled]

24. #2 and 3 are not correct

2. Kerry is the BEST QUALIFIED PERSON for this position. There's not a person in Washington, Susan Rice INCLUDED who has his foreign policy experience and expertise.

Although Kerry is eminently qualified, one cannot say that he is the BEST qualified. There are probably a dozen (at least) equally qualified candidates, many of whose names we don't even know. As for Susan Rice, you know her qualifications, but I'll repeat the basic outline:

• valedictorian at National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C.,
• attended Stanford University, where she received a Truman Scholarship, and graduated with a B.A. in history in 1986. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa
• Awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, Rice attended New College, Oxford, where she earned a M.Phil. in 1988 and D.Phil. in 1990. The Chatham House-British International Studies Association honored her dissertation entitled, "Commonwealth Initiative in Zimbabwe, 1979-1980: Implication for International Peacekeeping" as the UK's most distinguished in international relations
• foreign policy aide to Michael Dukakis during the 1988 presidential election.
• served in the Clinton administration in various capacities: at the National Security Council from 1993 to 1997; as Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping from 1993 to 1995 and as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs from 1995 to 1997.
• In 2002, joined the Brookings Institution as senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program. At Brookings, she focused on U.S. foreign policy, weak and failing states, the implications of global poverty, and transnational threats to security.
• During the 2004 presidential campaign, served as a foreign policy adviser to John Kerry.
• senior foreign policy advisor to Senator Barack Obama in his 2008 presidential campaign
• December 1, 2008, nominated by President-elect Obama to be the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, a position which he also upgraded to cabinet level

John Kerry has a long and distinguished career in politics and has served on the Senate Foreign Relations committee for many years. This makes him very qualified. However, you can not say that he is decisively better qualified than someone who did their graduate work in foreign relations, served in the State Department, served three presidential candidates as a foreign policy adviser, wrote and researched at a liberal think tank on foreign policy issues, and served for four years as ambassador to the United Nations. They're BOTH highly qualified.

3. Susan Rice is an Inner Circle Friend.

No, as you can see, Susan Rice was involved in government on the foreign policy side since 1988, as adviser to Dukakis, as a member of the Clinton administration, and at the pre-eminent liberal think tank. Barack Obama didn't pick her off of a basketball court. (The same goes for Holder, Emanuel, and Geithner--all of whom served President Clinton long before they'd ever heard of Barack Obama.) If I didn't know better, I'd say you were basing your comment about being an Obama insider on the color of these two people's faces. Kerry is as much an insider as Rice in this respect: he gave Obama his first national speaking engagement.

You're just wrong on this, and in a (sadly) kind of offensive way: offensive to trained diplomats, to women, and to people of color. She is eminently qualified, so let's not make that an issue.