Reports: Obama Picks Kerry for Top Diplomatic Post
President Barack Obama has chosen Senator John Kerry to succeed Hillary Clinton as U.S. secretary of state, news networks CNN and ABC reported Saturday.
CNN cited a Democratic source who had spoken to Kerry, while ABC mentioned unnamed sources.
Asked for comment by Agence France Presse, the White House did not immediately confirm the reports, but Kerry is seen as a frontrunner for the role.
The defeated 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, Kerry is currently head of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations committee.
On Thursday, Obama's ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, withdrew her name from consideration for the secretary of state post, effectively elevating Kerry to the prohibitive favorite.
Rice had come under fire over controversial statements about the deadly September 11 attack on a U.S. mission in Libya, and some Republican lawmakers had vowed to block her path to becoming top diplomat.
Democrats blamed politics for Rice's withdrawal. They insinuated that Republicans who failed to get any traction in using the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, to derail Obama's re-election bid instead took her down.
"Their behavior was a disgrace to the Senate's tradition of bipartisan cooperation on national security issues and beneath the stature of senators with otherwise distinguished records on national security," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said.
Kerry, a senator for nearly three decades, has won praise from his Senate colleagues and should be confirmed easily, if nominated.
He has been Obama's envoy to hot spots such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, the administration's point man in 2010 on a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia and a stand-in for Republican Mitt Romney during Obama's debate preparation this year.
Source: Agence France Presse
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