U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice Withdraws her Name from Consideration for Secretary of State!

Dear Commons Community,

U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice has withdrawn her name from consideration for secretary of state, Brian Williams of NBC News reports.

“If nominated, I am now convinced that the confirmation process would be lengthy, disruptive and costly — to you and to our most pressing national and international priorities,” Rice wrote in a letter to President Barack Obama, obtained by NBC News. “That trade-off is simply not worth it to our country … Therefore, I respectfully request that you no longer consider my candidacy at this time.”

With Rice out of the running, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is widely believed to be the frontrunner to replace current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Ambassador Rice has made a very classy decision and is showing a lot of loyalty to President Obama.

Tony

Nate Silver: News Punditry is Fundamentally Useless!

Dear Commons Community,

Nate Silver, the New York Times polling master, hammered members of the media on Wednesday night.  Politico’s Mike Allen reported that Silver appeared at Google’s Washington D.C. headquarters as part of the company’s Talk series. ABC News’ Jonathan Karl interviewed Silver, who spoke about working for the Times and the differences between journalism and punditry.

“I don’t want to totally lump reporters and pundits in together,” Silver said. “It’s kind of venial sins versus cardinal sins basically … where reporting is very, very important and journalism is very, very important, and there are some things about campaign coverage that I might critique. Whereas punditry is fundamentally useless.”

By the way, I have just finished reading Silver’s The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail but Some Don’t.  It is well worth the read.

Tony