SUSAN RICE HUNG OUT TO DRY:

As the Obama Administration embarks on its 2^nd term there will undoubt­ed­ly be tri­umphs and tra­vails. It appears that in every Administration there are play­ers whom are sac­ri­fi­cial lambs. Oliver North under Reagan, Harriet Myers under Bush 43^rd, and now Susan Rice under Obama.

It seem to me though, that Susan Rice was made to look like a fool, in order that the Obama Administration may have the nom­i­nee it real­ly want­ed for the state depart­ment John Kerry. I make no claim to know how Washington DC works, but it seem to me that Obama was not pre­pared to fight for the woman he calls his friend. One may be cyn­i­cal about the motives of Senate Republicans, under­stand­ably so, they want anoth­er shot at the Massachusetts Senate seat that John Kerry is vacat­ing to head the State Department.

The ven­om with which John McCain, Kelly Ayotte, Lindsay Graham and oth­ers came out against Ambassador Rice leaves me to won­der if there is not more to it than meets the eyes. Separate and apart from the cyn­i­cal­ly obvi­ous craven desire of Republicans to poten­tial­ly pick up anoth­er Senate seat, it does seem there was a deep­er and more con­spir­a­to­r­i­al plot afoot when McCain referred to Kerry as Mister sec­re­tary, while he and oth­ers were simul­ta­ne­ous­ly wag­ing a vis­cer­al war against an African-American woman, expo­nen­tial­ly more qual­i­fied than he McCain or either of his cohorts to head the State Department, or any oth­er job for that mat­ter. There have also been whis­pers that many in the Republican Party actu­al­ly believe that Rice has been pro­mot­ed far enough.

Obama and Rice con­fer­ring. John Kerry

Now that is quite under­stand­able, the Republican Party would absolute­ly pre­fer to see blacks back on the plan­ta­tion, Black woman, maybe worse. Floating Susan Rice’s name then back­ing away was cow­ard­ly and cyn­i­cal. Rice has been one of Obama’s staunchest sup­port­ers, even before he became President. John McCain bears the scars of Rice’s unmit­i­gat­ed defense of Obama in the 2008 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. Barack Obama did not take a scratch for Susan Rice, he did not rec­i­p­ro­cate the loy­al­ty Rice demon­strat­ed on his behalf. What is polit­i­cal cap­i­tal if you don’t spend it on principles?

Irrespective of what oth­ers say, Blacks are the foun­da­tion of the Democratic Party and the spine that puts and kept Barack Obama in the White House. To have only Eric Holder in the top ech­e­lon of the cab­i­net is inex­cus­able and cow­ard­ly, as I said before, a Barack Obama with back­bone would shove Susan Rice down Republicans throats.The cor­dial­i­ty we saw extend­ed to Kerry on the first day of hear­ings, was a love-fest, com­pared to how Hillary was treat­ed the day before.

John McCain Kelly Ayotte

Lindsay Graham

Of course Republicans were in love with Hillary Clinton, pre­vi­ous to this their last attempt to bloody her nose. The Clintons were just a month ago Republicans idea of good Democrats. Of course Obama has been re-elect­ed to a sec­ond 4 year term, so their atten­tions are now refo­cused on attack­ing the Clintons, just in case Hillary decides to run for pres­i­dent in 2016. I have no quar­rel with the idea of a Secretary of State John Kerry, after all it’s only fair that Obama reward Kerry with some­thing, it was Kerry who ele­vat­ed Obama’s pro­file by giv­ing him prime time keynote speak­ing time at his Nominating con­ven­tion in 2004.

Maybe if Obama had not giv­en that red state blue state speech at Kerry’s con­ven­tion, we would not have a twice elect­ed Barack Obama. I have no quar­rel with Senator Kerry, I thought he would have been a good President, He will be a great Secretary of State, I just don’t believe Susan Rice should have been the Ram caught in the bush­es and sac­ri­ficed as in the bib­li­cal sto­ry of Abraham and his son Isaac.

• There are cred­i­ble rum­blings that many in the Republican Party feel strong­ly that Susan Rice has been pro­mot­ed far enough. I am not quite sure whether it’s the black or the woman part of Susan Rice they hate more, or maybe both.
• Susan Rice has been a loy­al sol­dier for Obama, Obama has let Rice down.
• The love-fest I saw between Kerry and his Senate Republican col­leagues on Thursday January 24^th was a stark reminder, that when it comes down to it peo­ple look out for oth­ers who look like themselves.
• Can Barack Obama say the same?
• As African-Americans returned from Vietnam to seg­re­ga­tion, ridicule, and racial big­otry, so too has Susan Rice been treat­ed even as she con­tin­ues to give stel­lar and exem­plary ser­vice to country.
• Many who crit­i­cizes and cas­ti­gate her are sig­nif­i­cant­ly less qual­i­fied than she is, they lack the intel­lect, the edu­ca­tion, and the strength of char­ac­ter she has demon­strat­ed in her ser­vice to her country.
• Many who are now held up as heroes, actu­al­ly spilled their guts under pressure.
• Susan Rice has noth­ing of which to be ashamed.