Once again, the president has chosen a mediocre political devotee as either a reward for past service or to help defend the castle walls during a combative second term. …

Place Rice next to those figures. Putting aside her flawed service as U.N. ambassador, Rice has done, said, and written almost nothing to distinguish her as an influential voice in foreign policy, either within the Democratic party or outside of it. The highest profile act of her career in the Clinton State Department was to support standing by during the Rwandan genocide — one of the great tragedies of the Clinton years — because of concern over the effect of an intervention on the 1994 midterm elections.

Choosing a committed loyalist despite her role in one of the administration’s biggest scandals shows that the president has little interest in cooperating with the opposition party on the issues where bipartisanship is most important: national security and foreign affairs.