Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State planned to testify herself in January. The Benghazi matter also had an effect on Clinton's successor as Secretary of State. Obama's first choice was Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, but she came under heavy criticism from Congressional Republicans for what they felt were incorrect or deceptive statements in the aftermath of the attack, and by mid-December she withdrew her name from consideration. Obama then nominated Senator John Kerry for the position instead. By one report, Clinton had preferred Kerry over Rice all along anyway. Although still not well enough to attend the December 21 announcement of Kerry's nomination, Clinton
Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State official said, "She's the first secretary who's also been a global rock star. It's allowed her to raise issues on the global agenda in a way that no one before her has been able to do." The divisions between Obama and Clinton that many observers had originally predicted, never happened. Indeed, a writer for "The New York Times Magazine" declared that "Obama and Clinton have instead led the least discordant national-security team in decades, despite enormous challenges on almost every front." In part, this was because Obama and Clinton both approached foreign policy as a largely non-ideological, pragmatic exercise. Nevertheless,