Not sure of source at all - but here's an article that says David Thorne will be ambassador to Italy

[karynnj]

He would be a fantastic ambassador - as his family had a home there at least when he and his sister were in school. Supposedly at Kerry's request. (I notice that the article has to have his age wrong - unless he was a child prodigy and was 5 years younger than Kerry even though they were in school together. )

http://www.headlinebistro.com/en/news/italyambassadors.html

[MBS]

1. and Caroline Kennedy as Vatican ambassador is also pretty

interesting, too ! Not to mention that the attribution of JK fingerprints on both (alleged) nominations. .

[fedupinBushcountry]

2. They do have his age wrong

He is Julia Thorne's twin brother and was born Sept. 16, 1944. That would be a terrific duo in Italy.

[Democrafty]

3. Wow!

If that's true, he's lucky! Italy would be a wonderful place to live and work.

[karynnj]

4. That would be nice -I hope it's true

he clearly deserves it given all the support he has given Kerry over the years - and Kerry picked Obama for an important speech that was pretty important to his success.

That will be a fun confirmation hearing to watch.

[beachmom]

5. The choice of Caroline Kennedy has been vetoed by the Vatican:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/14/vatican-vetoes-obama-nominees-abortion

The Vatican has vetoed three of Barack Obama's potential nominees as US ambassador amid a growing dispute between the White House and the Roman Catholic church over the new administration's support for abortion rights and the lifting of a ban on stem cell research.

Vatican sources told Italy's Il Giornale newspaper that among those rejected were Caroline Kennedy and two other Roman Catholics who were unacceptable to the pope because they have publicly stood against church dogma.

To give one an idea of how extremist the Church hierarchy now is, look at why they rejected another candidate:

The Vatican also rejected another potential nominee, Douglas Kmiec, a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University and former head of the office of legal counsel for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. Kmiec, a Republican who endorsed Obama during the last election campaign, has said that Catholics who support the right to abortion need not follow the church's admonition to vote for an anti-abortion presidential candidate.

So that guy is not necessarily pro-choice (since he worked for Reagan & Bush he may be pro-life), but since he defended other Catholics who voted for Obama (or even Kerry) he has been deemed unacceptable.

I also just heard a report on NPR about this, so this is pretty sure to be true. The Vatican denies it, but that's only a technicality: they have essentially rejected these candidates.