U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice Chris Usher, CBS News/AP
John Kerry got his job as the Susan Rice scandal was still unfolding
Obama offered Kerry the position a week before Rice withdrew her name from contention.
U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice was long rumored to be President Obama's choice for Secretary of State, but — as it was understood before today — her viability faltered under the controversy surrounding comments she gave during several Sunday talk shows a few days after the September 11 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, and she eventually withdrew herself from consideration for the State Department post. According to a Boston Globe report out today, however, the end of her ordeal, which intensified in the weeks before she took herself out of the running, was pretty much for naught. It turns out that John Kerry got the job right after John McCain called him "Mr. Secretary" as a joke:
Kerry said President Obama offered him the job of secretary of state a week before United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice withdrew her name from contention, an earlier timeline than has been previously reported.