Reply #6: Wouldn't the Congressional delegation be close enough to Kerry

[karynnj]

to know more than the rest of us?

I also think that in 2008, Kerry had reason to think that Obama was close to where he was on foreign policy, but over the last two years, from Afghanistan to Honduras to Libya, Obama was very close to Clinton's positions, not Kerry's. In addition, I can see a new President with relatively little foreign policy experience picking a very strong foreign policy thinker with a well developed world view that the President agreed with. However, as a second term President, who has met most leaders and has 4 years of making the final decision, one might think he might be more likely to want a competent manager of the State Department, who is a polished diplomat, but one who would stay more in the back ground.

(One other thing is that people have spoken of the changes in the State department - many actually recommended by Kerry and Lugar. People have said that implementing them is likely HRC's legacy. My guess is that, as with any new changes, there will be bugs to fix. I know from working in a corporation that you never wanted to take over the job of a "fast tracker". All the credit was already given - and anything that would go wrong is yours.)