CT Blue

Hillary Clinton is now officially the Secretary of State designate. This has been the occasion for much bloviating among the punditocracy. Having been christened an “every day pundit” during my first and (hopefully) last talk radio appearance, I feel compelled to weigh in.

Personally, I think she’s a good choice, and I doubt very much that the dire interpersonal consequences predicted by the professional pundits will come to pass. She’s a professional. She fought hard, sometimes maybe a bit too hard, during the campaign, and no doubt while the fur was flying she harbored some unkind feelings toward Obama. Those days are over, and there’s no reason to think she won’t do her best to implement Obama’s policies. Moreover, there’s no reason to think that her policy preferences will be much different than his. The fact is that her biggest mistakes consisted of doing what she felt was politic, rather than going with what I firmly believe would have been her preference. Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq war, because she made a decision based solely on political calculations. It is, in my opinion, not conceivable that she would have started the Iraq War, had she been the “decider” at the time. Now she is the decider, or at least she’s working for the decider, and she’s unlikely to disagree with Obama’s approach in any significant way. She is, by all accounts, an extremely hard working, dedicated person. Her success as secretary of state depends on her ability to implement Obama’s policies. If she crosses him or tries to act contrary to her brief, he’ll get rid of her, either outright, or by making her a figurehead. Think Nixon’s first secretary of state, William P. Rogers, or, more recently, of the manner in which Colin Powell was slowly but surely marginalized by the nutjobs running the Bush White House.

I hope, too, that after a decent, but not too long an interval, Bill Clinton can be brought on board to help out somewhere in the world. The latest meme on Bill is that he’s some sort of loose cannon. There’s not much basis for the charge, but where Bill Clinton is concerned, evidence has always been optional. Bush has been in charge of the Augean Stables for eight years. Unlike Hercules, Obama won’t be able to clean up alone. He’s going to need all the help he can get, and Bill Clinton is a resource too valuable to waste.