John Kerry

His effectiveness is not that impacted by the beltway media. Yes, I wanted to throw something at the tv when Chris Hayes and Joan Walsh were all giddy and suddenly saying this is the most important job. It isn't - and that is why Rice didn't immediately take her name out of consideration.

Only history will TRY to say who influenced the President more. It also is pretty odd given that the SAME people are still speaking of Hillary as "iconic" and "a rock star", In the US political system, she is. However, the story is now that she did NOT influence policy - where in fact, we know she did on Afghanistan. Here, the articles have flipped this - and suddenly it is more important to be in DC with Obama.

As to who Obama will listen to more, I suspect on any issue it will be the one with the more promising, believable alternative. I also don't think that they will be always opposing each other. Sometimes the best ideas are the result of serious people - with different pieces of information and world views build on each other's ideas. Both are positioned in such a way that they will have their opinion heard. Kerry is in the cabinet - so he will be at meetings on issues other than foreign policy as well as those on foreign policy.

Back to Clinton, she is being called a great SoS because of her extensive travels and the goodwill they bring. As a SoS, she was a big deal when she visited countries - but ANY SoS is for many countries. As to diplomacy, she wasn't that diplomatic. Not in the Middle East, not in Pakistan, not in Latin America and not in Russia. No matter how diplomatic, hard working and sincere a US diplomat is there will be some times when it will be impossible to get countries to do what we want. It simply may not be in their interest.

At this point, what I see is that many are impressed at the passion that he has to try to solve possibly impossible problems. That is the Kerry we know. Many are saying that he can fail -- and he has said that himself. However, I suggest that you listen to the AJC post that I linked to in the J Street post. The AJC is not some liberal Jewish group - it is very establishment and has typically agreed with anything Israel was doing. The applause there was hard won - and important. Look at the incredible email that Jstreet send to its list. They also sent another email if you signed the petition requesting people show the videa to their friends, family, synagogue. I have been a member of JStreet for years and this is as excited as I have seen them. (One interesting additional piece of information is that Israeli leaders recently met with some of them when they were in Israel last month. This never happened before.)

I am proud our SoS has put his heart, incredible energy and his intelligence and skill behind
trying to move the needle on this. It is more likely to fail than succeed, but how low the probability of a more peaceful solution before it is not worth it. Given how low the cost is and how great the reward, it could be pretty low and worth the effort.

In Syria the chances are far less - here, in one interview he spoke of how in good conscience, they had to try.