It appears President-elect Obama has selected Susan Rice as his Ambassador to the United Nations. He also intends to elevate the UN Ambassadorship to the Cabinet level. This selection and elevating the position are both troubling.

As Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs points out, giving greater importance to the UN in the Obama administration is counter productive to U.S. interests and sovereignty. The UN is not our friend, never has been, and never will be.

In addition, Yid With Lid reports that Susan Rice was one of the Clinton State Department people who blocked the turn over of Osama Bin Laden to U.S. custody in 1996 and 1997. According to a July 2004 NewsMax.com article titled, "Another Clinton Terror War Bungler in Key Kerry Post":

Another ex-Clinton official who played a leading role in bungling efforts to capture and/or neutralize Osama bin Laden has turned up in a key advisory position with the Kerry campaign.

Susan Rice, who served as President Clinton's Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, had earlier been tapped by Gov. Howard Dean's anti-war campaign...

"The FBI, in 1996 and 1997, had their efforts to look at terrorism data and deal with the bin Laden issue overruled every single time by the State Department, by Susan Rice and her cronies, who were hell-bent on destroying the Sudan," one-time Clinton diplomatic troubleshooter Mansoor Ijaz told radio host Sean Hannity in 2002.

Richard Miniter, author of the book "Losing bin Laden," concurred, saying Rice played a key role in scuttling the deal that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

In November 2003, Miniter told World Magazine that while Sudan was anxious to turn bin Laden over to the U.S., Rice - then a member of Clinton's National Security Council - questioned Khartoum's credibility...

In April 1997, they said, Sudan dropped its demand that Washington lift sanctions in exchange for terrorism cooperation.

"Sudan's policy shift sparked a debate at the State Department, where foreign service officers believed the United States should reengage Khartoum. By the end of summer 1997, [those officers] persuaded incoming Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to let at least some diplomatic staff return to Sudan to press for a resolution of the civil war and pursue offers to cooperate on terrorism.

"Two individuals, however, disagreed. NSC terrorism specialist Richard Clarke and NSC Africa specialist Susan Rice, who was about to become assistant secretary of State for African affairs."

Rice and Clarke persuaded Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger to overrule Albright on the Sudanese terrorism overtures, said Ijaz and Carney.

So there you have another "brilliant" pick for a key cabinet level post in the Obama administration.