Clinton Praises Rice, a Possible Successor Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton praised Susan E. Rice, the United Nations ambassador and a leading contender to be the next secretary of state, during a news conference in Dublin on Thursday. "Susan Rice has done a great job as our U.N. ambassador," Mrs. Clinton said. "She has played an important role," she added, noting Ms. Rice's role in getting approval for multilateral sanctions on North Korean and Iran. Senate opponents of the possible nomination of Ms. Rice to replace Mrs. Clinton when she retires this year have focused on what they call her misstatements, especially on a series of Sunday television talk shows, in the days after the deadly attack on a diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. "What Susan said had been based on the information that had been given to every senior official in our administration," Mrs. Clinton said, repeating the standard administration explanation of the disputed comments. She made it clear it was subject to change. "Our understanding evolved over time," Mrs. Clinton said of the intelligence regarding the Benghazi attack.