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 September 2011 Bloomberg News poll finding her with a 64 percent favorable rating, the highest of any political figure in the nation. A third of those polls said that Clinton would have been a better president than Obama, but when asked the likelihood she would stage a campaign against the president, she said, "It's below zero. One of the great things about being secretary of state is I am out of politics. I am not interested in being drawn back into it by anybody." Following the October 2011 announcement by Obama that the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq would