Obama names outspoken Rice as his security adviser

Ambassador to the United Nations

Samantha Power has been nominated to replace Rice. A confidant and adviser to Obama during the 2008 election, Power joined the administration, but did not land a top job after some especially blunt criticism of Hillary Rodham Clinton during the campaign. Like Rice, Power is a believer in United States intervention on behalf of humanitarian causes. She must be confirmed by the Senate.

GEORGIA ANGLE

Samantha Power’s family emigrated from Ireland in 1979 and four years later moved to the Atlanta area when she was 13. She graduated from Lakeside High in DeKalb County in 1988.

The cross country, track and basketball athlete earned a 4.08 GPA and a 1320 SAT score, according to a story at the time in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. She also worked at a yogurt shop and was treasurer of the senior class.

But, she added, “It’s not like I’m a nerd or something — I get in trouble, too.”

After her freshman year at Yale, she returned to her hometown in 1989 to get a summer internship at the CBS-TV affiliate. She dreamed about being the next Bob Costas but said she discovered her true calling of humanitarianism, inspired by watching footage of the pro-democracy uprising in China’s Tiananmen Square.

“It was really sort of chilling, and I thought, ‘Oh, my God. What am I doing with my life?’ ” she said in a 2003 interview.

Staff reports

President Barack Obama named outspoken diplomat Susan Rice as his national security adviser Wednesday, giving her a larger voice in U.S. foreign policy despite accusations that she misled the nation in the aftermath of the deadly attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya.

The appointment, along with the nomination of human rights advocate Samantha Power to replace Rice as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, signals a shift by Obama toward advisers who favor more robust American intervention overseas for humanitarian purposes.

But it’s unclear whether that philosophy will alter the president’s policies in Syria, where he has resisted pressure to use U.S. military force to stem that country’s civil war.

Rice’s appointment provides a measure of redemption after the contentious Benghazi investigations forced her from consideration as Obama’s second-term secretary of state. The president, who vigorously defended Rice from GOP criticism at the time, lauded his close friend Wednesday as a “patriot who puts her country first.”

“Susan is a fierce champion for justice and human decency. But she’s also mindful that we have to exercise our power wisely and deliberately,” Obama said in a White House Rose Garden ceremony.

The 48-year-old Rice takes the influential national security post in the president’s inner circle from Tom Donilon, who is stepping down in July after more than four years in the Obama White House.

Wednesday’s announcements came as Obama seeks to regroup from three controversies that have emboldened Republicans and threatened to overshadow his agenda: the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative political groups, the Justice Department’s seizure of phone records of Associated Press journalists and the resurgent investigation into the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

Rice became entangled in the Benghazi case after asserting in television interviews that the September attack was probably spontaneous, a statement that was later shown to be false. While Rice said she was relying on talking points crafted by the administration, she became a target for Republicans accusing the White House of trying to cover up a terror attack during the presidential election.

Because Rice’s new job does not require Senate confirmation, some of the GOP lawmakers who doled out the most aggressive attacks appeared resigned to her promotion through the ranks of Obama’s national security team.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, one of Rice’s harshest critics, wrote on Twitter that he disagreed with her appointment but would “make every effort” to work with her on important matters.

The toughest criticism of Rice came from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who tangled with former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton over Benghazi at a hearing earlier this year. In a series of tweets, Paul said he questioned “the president’s judgment in promoting someone who was complicit in misleading the American public on the Benghazi attacks.”

Rice first started working for Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign and already has a close friendship with the president as well as the trust of many of his advisers. She’s been a strong advocate at the U.N. for stricter sanctions against Iran and North Korea, and also pushed for the U.S. and allies to use military force to help Libyan rebels oust longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Rice previously served in various national security positions in President Bill Clinton’s administration, including key roles on peacekeeping and African affairs. Her world view is said to have been shaped by Clinton’s decision to not intervene in the Rwandan genocide, a move Rice said later deeply affected her.

Power, a human rights advocate and genocide expert, was among the fiercest critics of Clinton officials, including Rice, who kept the U.S. out of Rwanda.

A former journalist, Power won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction for her book “A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,” which examined U.S. foreign policy toward genocide in the 20th century.

Power served as an informal adviser to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, but resigned after calling then-rival Hillary Clinton a “monster.” She later joined Obama’s national security staff at the White House, overseeing the human rights portfolio.