President Obama has nominated Senator John Kerry to be the next Secretary of State following Susan Rice’s withdrawal from consideration.  There was a strong possibility Rice would not have been confirmed following the Benghazi report.  At the very least, her confirmation hearings would have been highly disruptive.  Senator Kerry is all but assured of being confirmed.  The President said at the White House, Kerry would need to “harness all elements of American power”, and hat he was “not going to need a lot of on-the-job training”.  Senator Kerry was first elected to the Senate from Massachusetts in 1985.  He ran an unsuccessful campaign to unseat President Bush in 2004, winning, over 48% of the popular vote.  The President praised Kerry saying as the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he “played a central role in every major foreign policy debate for nearly 30 years.”  He continued, “in a sense, John’s entire life has prepared him for this role.”  The President is absolutely correct, so one must wonder what he was thinking when he nominated Rice over Kerry.  Clearly Kerry is the better choice, so let’s make believe the President had a good reason for his initial selection.  Perhaps he didn’t want to risk losing Kerry’s Senate seat to the Republicans, and if that’s the case, he shouldn’t be playing politics regarding the ever so important position of Secretary of State.  Kerry is a highly decorated Vietnam veteran who later helped those veterans opposed to the war.  Kerry’s confirmation will indeed leave an empty Senate seat from Massachusetts where it is expected Scott Brown(R), still popular despite his loss in November’s election, is expected to challenge for the seat.  Other Democrats have shown an interest including Edward Kennedy Jr, son of the late Edward M Kennedy who Scott Brown succeeded when his father passed away.