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Hillary Clinton should not want to be Obama's Secretary of State.

Argues Peter Beinart, pretty convincingly.

The last former secretary of state to even seek the presidency was Alexander Haig in 1988, and his candidacy was a joke. To find a former secretary of state who actually won you have to go back 150 years, to James Buchanan... It forces you to turn your energies away from domestic issues, which is what Americans usually vote on, and towards international questions that many find exotic and obscure...

[S]ecretaries of state aren?t meant to be politically popular. They?re not supposed to burnish their approval ratings; they?re supposed to take bullets so presidents can burnish theirs....

Why should the great Hillary live in Barack Obama's shadow, subject to dismissal at his whim? How is it better than building yourself up independently as the Senator from New York, carving out your issues, readying yourself for 2016 -- or 2012 if Obama slips up?

Secretaries of state were struggling even before the vice presidency?historically a dish rag of a job?got a steroid injection. With Al Gore and Dick Cheney and now, almost certainly, Joseph Biden wielding real foreign policy muscle, decision-making is becoming even more centralized at the White House. NSC advisors pop into the Oval Office all day, often alone. Vice presidents, if they have the president?s trust, have tons of opportunities to whisper in his ear when no one else is around. Secretaries of state, by contrast, often only see the president in big, scripted meetings, where they have to compete for time with the director of CIA.

And, by the way, I notice Presidents keep putting women in that slot. What's that about? Hmmm. Steroid... muscle....

UPDATE: The Guardian claims to have learned that "Hillary Clinton plans to accept the job of secretary of state offered by Barack Obama." Why would she let it be known that she'd accept the job if it's offered? As a ploy to lock him in?

Full post as published by Althouse on November 17, 2008 (boomark / email).