from wire service
Why is is necessary to swear her in immediately? Is there pressing business requiring the actions of the official Secretary of State? If so, isn’t Colin Powell still on the payroll?
Colin Powell has already resigned, said goodbye to his “troops,” and left the building.
She’s fourth in the line of presidential sucession, behind Cheney, Hastert, and Ted Stevens, so, you never know.
Why would it be advantagous to have some sort of waitign period between the time she has been confirmed and the time she takes office? Colin Powell has resigned and presumably has other things he wants to do.
As to your second question, I think it’s clear that there are several urgent matters, including the impending elections in Iraq, the humanitarian crisis in southeast asia, the re-emergence of Israeli-Palestinian tensions, the shaky truce in war-torn Sudan, a growing scandal at the UN, the fight against international terrorism… the question ought to be why we let the confirmation process drag on. Whether you like Rice or not, it’s clear that the secretary of state has some extremely important work to do in the next few months.
Not advantageous to wait, but I failed to include that the story goes on to say there’ll be a ceremonial swearing in (I think by Justice Ginsberg) the next day. It’s not like she’s not allowed to think about her Secretary of State duties until she’s sworn in. – so why bother to have an official, unattended swearing in, unless there was serious money in the over/under office pool.
Perhaps there was the fear that if too much time elapsed between the confirmation and the swearing in ceremony someone would throw down the red flag and challenge it. After all, a review of all the relevant tape might cause the referee to overturn the on the field decision.