Rice’s Chances of Being Nominated Probably Just Increased

President Obama aggressively defended U.N. ambassador Susan Rice, “using his first postelection news conference to pointedly rebut Republican charges that the diplomat misled the American public in the aftermath of the attacks in Libya,” the Boston Globe reports.

Bloomberg notes Obama’s “spirited defense” of Rice “has moved her a step closer to being named to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.”

First Read: “If you thought that Obama might decide to pass on nominating Susan Rice to be the next Secretary of State, think again. Yesterday’s confrontation might have been the best thing to happen to her chances of being nominated. The president is a pragmatist and is usually someone who likes to avoid confirmation fights for his appointees. But the more the GOP attacks Rice, the more dug in the White House and president might get.”