Senator Hillary Clinton Chosen as Next U.S. Secretary of State
Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY)
Photo: U.S. Senate
Of course there are political reasons why President-elect Obama would choose Senator Clinton. This keeps her from running against him for the nomination in 2012, and it brings lots of new or renewed supporters on board with the Obama Administration. On the political downside, he now has to share his spotlight with an international celebrity who brings a former presidential spouse onto the stage as well.
But I don't think he choose her for purely political reasons. Clinton knows the world and knows what needs to be done to restore America's respect and admiration around the world. I believe she knows how to capitalize on the automatic goodwill we have received for merely electing Obama.
It is interesting that foreign policy was one of the divisive issues between Obama and Clinton in the primary race, yet here they are pledging to cooperate on that very issue. Clinton said we couldn't trust Obama to handle the 3 a.m. phone call about a global crisis. And the two diverged on how far to go in engaging enemy states. But as at the end of most campaigns, these things will be papered over. I never thought Obama and Clinton were really that far apart on the engagement issue anyway.
In the end, choosing Clinton will leave many people conflicted. Even in a column where Maureen Dowd seemed to be mostly OK with the choice, she wrote "How, one may ask, can he put Hillary — who voted to authorize the Iraq War without even reading the intelligence assessment — in charge of patching up a foreign policy and a world riven by that war?"
So what do you think? Will President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton be a formidable foreign policy team? Or are we in for some big time White House drama?
Comments
10 Reasons why Hilary would be a terrific Secretary of State.
1- Obama does not have to worry about her spending $150,000 worth of pantsuits with the Department credit cards.
2- Her husband Bill would not mind having her away too long too often.
3-She knows all the male foreign leaders’ secret girlfriends.
4- She knows how to throw the kitchen sink.
5-She is experienced in dodging snipers fire.
6-She can hang with them all in any neighborhood bar.
7-She has been in more than half of the world countries and can see the rest of them from her kitchen.
8-When she ran out of conflict to resolve, she would make up one and solve it.
9-She is already Secretary of State at home.
10-She loves 3 AM phone calls.
Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State would be a choice in keeping with Obama’s “Yes we can”. If he succeeds as President, and is elected for a second term, Clinton may be too old to run thereafter, and is unlikely to run against him beforehand.
If Obama fails as President Clinton may have a chance to run for President. My money is on Obama–whoever he chooses.
There;s really no reason for Sejnator Clinton to bge named Sec of State. She lost her primary, heavily, so why there’s any clain that she should now get a post right at the top, hmm. What postions do other losers get?>
But more seriously, what happens in the world? Somebgody who waltz’s out from the Clinton administration with the certain policy that the Isrelis are always right, no palestian action s can ever be considered even remotely fair, and ther criticism of any Israeli policy-even the one using fighters to machine gun kids anywhere in the occupied territories are , by definition right. Even only on the basis of ‘Hey we the one (of several) chosed people-you kinow-read the book of Joshua (frankly, a little more bloody than Mein Kamph). The whole point of lABOUR zIONISM WAS TO ENSURE THAT WHEN Jews are allowed all the weapons, and planes of the superior, then we too can push outselves around, and the slighter others especally to show how we are superior, and you have to give up your farmland, acords, homes, schools, books, seeds, and olive groves to us, pn the basic assumption that, you know, WE WANT THEM, SO HOW CAN YOU DENY US. People in Poland, eastern Germany, some parts of Hungary, the Czech Republic (++) ETC. TREATED US SELL.
i KNOW WHO WE’LL TAKE THT ON-pALESTINIANS. tHE HAVE NO CANNONS OR ARMED DRIL;L.