Let me say that nothing would please me more than the senate to reform the filibuster, and then confirm Susan Rice for Secretary of State, in that order. And if the first doesn't happen, the second seems less likely. Rachel Maddow's been following the Rice story, and she had this to say.
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Yes, if John Kerry wants to be SoS, he more than deserves it. Personally, I'd rather see Senator "Winter Soldier" running the DoD, but that's just me. John Kerry is qualified for both, and if he wants either position, I'm in his corner. He's sixty-eight years old, capping his career off with Secretary of State, if he wants it, good on him.
Here's the thing, though; if Rachel's correct, we're looking at opening up a slot for Scott Brown to run for. Brown is like a recurring rash just waiting for a chance to flair up again. Follow me below the BDSM cutting pattern to what I read on the Daily Beast. Yes, really.
So, I was over at Tina Brown's, I'm not quite sure what, and I see an article subtitled,
With opposition to Susan Rice mounting daily, Michael Tomasky proposes six alternative nominees for the top post at Foggy Bottom. Head of the list? The winner of the 2000 election.
Really? Yep. Here are the relevant 'graphs.
1. Al Gore. I first heard this suggestion from my friend David Greenberg, the historian who writes for Slate, and I though, nahhh. But it grew on me pretty fast. Tell me why not. He’d be great. He’s known around the world. He’s respected around the world, about 90 percent of which surely wishes he’d been the president instead of the guy he beat. I’m not saying he’d change the world; no one can do that. But he’d get a hearing everywhere. He knows a huge number of world leaders, and he knows the issues cold. He could dive right into the pool’s deepest end, in the Middle East, on Iran, you name it.
What about his climate-change crusade, you wonder? Far from having to drop his signature issue, Gore could use his new position to push it with even greater vigor in a global context. Gore, and probably Gore alone, would be capable of elevating the climate change issue to the position it deserves on the national and global stage.
What we don’t know that much about is the Gore-Obama relationship. In 2007 and 2008, Gore clearly tilted toward Obama (Gore’s mere refusal to endorse Hillary Clinton over Obama indicated as much). Gore didn’t endorse Obama until right after he’d secured the nomination, but the two were said to have talked regularly. That’s good enough.
Finally: Man, would I love to see the Republicans try to swat down a Gore nomination. How? They’d poke around in his finances, remind America that he’s now divorced. But unless there were some kind of smoking gun on the former point, no one would care. They could not really block Gore; too much stature, too obviously qualified. Can you imagine? John McCain would grind his teeth, assuming those still are his teeth, down to dust. That would be awesome to watch.
Mr. Tomasky is absolutely correct. That would be awesome to watch. I'm not-so-crazy to downright frothing at the mouth over his other selections, but Al Gore? A climate change advocate as SoS? Nobel prize winning, respected statesman in his own right Al Gore? We could do a lot worse, and sometimes we have.
Before anyone starts a pie fight, let me again state my preferences. Filibuster reform first and foremost. Rice if that's who the President picks, he's the Boss. Plus, the sooner we smack the Rethugs around, the better. Elections have consequences, and the freshmen class needs to learn that early and hard.
If that fails, Kerry if he wants it. Heck, let Kerry write his own ticket, pick a cabinet post if you want, or stay where you are. If you want to leave the Senate, and Rachel's correct, we'll have your back. Pick your successor for the senate and we'll fly in anything s/he needs to win. But if you decide the travel's too much, or there's nothing else you really want, let's see the Prez nominate Al Gore.
It would be worth it, just to see the look on that turtle-faced, obstructionist asshole McConnell's face. BTW, turtles are held in low esteem in my ancestral homeland. In some parts of China, "son of a turtle" is a grave insult, worse than denigrating the virtue of someone's mother.