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The Company Memo: Friday, December 14, 2012

Good morning! Here's what's on today's agenda: "Susan Rice withdraws name for secretary of state, citing GOP attacks" by Erin Delmore, msnbc
Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, DC on September 12, 2011. (Photo by Michael Bonfigli / The Christian Science Monitor via Getty Images)
Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, DC on September 12, 2011.

Good morning! Here's what's on today's agenda:

"Susan Rice withdraws name for secretary of state, citing GOP attacks" by Erin Delmore, msnbc

"'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, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., wrote in a letter to President Obama obtained by NBC News."

Tune in at 10:00 AM ET to hear Roll Call's David Drucker and The Atlantic's Molly Ball discuss. 

"Study Questions Link Between Tax Cuts and Growth," The New York Times

"A nonpartisan research division of Congress has produced its second report this year questioning the link between tax cuts on high incomes and economic growth, stepping once again into the fuming debate on Capitol Hill over raising taxes on wealthy Americans."

We'll ask  Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) about it. 

"Pentagon to send missiles, 400 troops to Turkey" by Robert Burns, The Associated Press

"The U.S. will send two batteries of Patriot missiles and 400 troops to Turkey as part of a NATO force meant to protect Turkish territory from potential Syrian missile attack, the Pentagon said Friday."

We'll talk with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

"The case for John Kerry as secretary of state" by David Ignatius, The Washington Post

"Kerry is a familiar figure to America and the world. He has been a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for nearly three decades. This very familiarity can seem something of a liability: the lean face, the patrician bearing, the status as a presidential also-ran. But the fact that Kerry is a known commodity, with a predictable, reliable persona, is one of his strengths."

Strategists Rich Galen and Chris Kofinis join us.

"Cabinet Diversity Poses a Question for Obama" by Michael D. Shear, The New York Times

"It has been 15 years since a white man served as secretary of state or secretary of labor. Yet no woman or minority member has ever led the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency or the Treasury Department. The White House chief of staff has also always been a white man. As President Obama ponders how to shuffle his cabinet for a second term, he faces decisions that could continue these patterns — in which some cabinet jobs remain the domain of white men, while others endure as bastions of diversity — or that could break them."

New York Times' Michael Shear and Marcia Greenberger  from The National Women's Law Center are here to discuss.