Credit U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte with holding her ground on the deplorable and ill-considered Obama administration plan to name Susan Rice our Secretary of State. Coming from the state whose native son, Daniel Webster, once served with distinction in that post, Ayotte may have a particular appreciation for the importance of the post.

Ayotte, along with fellow Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham, took the lead in challenging the now-scuttled Rice plan, hatched by President Obama as a payoff for one of his Chicago political cronies.

McCain and Graham are longtime Senate and political pros, who have built up the tough skins and political street credibility needed when mounting such a challenge. Ayotte, by contrast, is a rookie in the ways of Washington.

Those who don't know her would not have been surprised had she wilted and wavered under the political and liberal media fire that was directed her way for opposing a newly reelected President.

But Sen. Ayotte is guided by facts and common sense. Ambassador Rice was clearly dissembling on the subject of what she knew and when she knew it on the Benghazi attack that left an American ambassador dead. To ignore that fact and put Rice in such an important post would have been exactly the wrong thing to do.

Ayotte is a rookie, but she has the markings of being a Rookie of the Year for Republicans, which is no doubt why her political foes here are already trying to gin up bad reviews for her every move.