I’ve tried to stay away from politics for a while now because…. I’m not sure, exactly. Maybe I wanted to avoid a big, sloppy omnibus thing about Obama that would be embarrassing in retrospect.
But I can’t keep quiet any longer about one thing: Naming Hillary Secretary of State is an awful, horrible, insane idea on at least four levels:
1. The [Bill] Clinton Foundation has done lots of good things around the world fighting disease and poverty, especially in the Third World. More good things than any Secretary of State and, arguably, most presidents do.
But those things have involved deal-making with foreign governments. They have involved taking money from some people the likes of whom are perfectly acceptable if the money’s used only, for example, to fight the AIDS epidemic. If the money carries implicit access to the Secretary of State’s ear, or even creates that appearance (as it obviously will, again and again and again), not so fine.
If Hilary’s SOS, the Foundation will either have to suspend or dramatically curtail operations, or open the Obama administration to one conflict of interest after another. Obama has already announced plans to monitor the foundation’s donors and activities, which will involve time and resources better spent elsewhere. NONE of that is necessary.
(Some of this was outlined by Christopther Hitchens in Slate yesterday. As usual with Hitchens, it’s over the top, but he’s not, essentially, wrong.)
2. Has Hillary ever done or said anything impressive in the foreign policy arena? I’m not aware of it. She was wrong on Iraq, but not really in terms of an actual idea or analysis. She just did what she always does, assess the lay of the land and say the politically-safe-in-the-short-term thing.
To borrow from Gertrude Stein: “There is no there there.”
And let’s not even get started on her spectacular, detailed lying fantasy about a 007-style death-defying flight into Bosnia, which was at least as dumb as it was dishonest (quite an accomplishment, in this case) but also, perhaps, a window on the pathetic kinds of things Hillary thinks impress the electorate.
3. When Obama was running against Hillary for the nomination, the foreign policy debate was, to simplify: Hillary- He doesn’t have any foreign policy experience; Obama- Her foreign policy judgment, experience or no, has sucked.
Obama won the debate, and the election, and then he turns around and makes Hillary… the head of his foreign policy team?
The things candidates say in elections ought to matter. When they don’t, the people who believe that elections are dog-and-pony shows put on to distract us from the back-room deals in which everything is really decided have their ugly, simplistic cynicism confirmed.
4. Hillary is by most accounts and appearances a good Senator. Being a good Senator is hard and valuable and uncommon. So, Obama is saying, let’s take her out of a hard, important job she’s good at and put her in one there’s no reason to believe she’d be good at and replace her in the old job with somebody there’s no reason to believe would be good at that. This at a time when the Senate majority is already in enough flux with the Blagojevich thing and the Al Franken thing, etc.
It’s the Peter Principle, squared.
Which brings us to Caroline Kennedy, who apparently will be appointed to Hillary’s seat based entirely (not mostly, not 90 percent, not 99 percent, entirely) because of her gender and last name.
This isn’t that different from Sarah Palin, folks. In some ways it’s worse, because at least (thank God) voters had the chance to reject Palin.
And if Hillary gets the tough confirmation fight that is the very least Congress owes the American people, you’ll hear all about how she’s only getting slapped around because she’s a woman.
That, ladies and gentlemen, will be bull****.
Your correspondent is no conservative, no Republican. Far from it. I like Obama, voted for him, am happy he won. But this is a discouraging and potentially dangerous mistake. The best we can hope for is it won’t matter much.
