Its about Kerry. Susan Collins practically begged Obama to appoint John Kerry, and the Republicans are promising a quick confirmation and no resistance--a guy they despise. Why? So they can fill Kerry's vacated seat in Massachusetts and salvage their humiliating whupass loss to Liz Warren. In fact, there's talk of running Scott Brown for Kerry's Senate seat.

Kerry is the tenth most senior Senator and the second longest serving Senator in his seat. He also holds senior positions on the Finance, Commerce, and Small Business Committees and is Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

They don't want to get Rice out of State. They want Kerry out of the Senate. An added bonus would be it will look like they defeated Obama over Rice, even if he decides to pick Kerry anyway because he is highly qualified and wants the job.

This Benghazi crap is a smokescreen. Only the mouth breathers believe Rice has anything to do with whatever happened in Libya. BTW, what DID happen in Libya that's such a scandal, anyway? It's still not clear to me what great crime was committed over there.

But Obama has the initiative. He has options, the Republicans have to respond to whatever he does. The President may even use Rice as leverage to gain concessions on the fiscal cliff negotiations (yes, he's perfectly capable of throwing her under the bus, for the right price), and right now the GOP is desperately trying to save face. Obama's got the weather gage on this one.