Legal Commentary

Beldar's reaction to rumors of Hillary for SecState

By Beldar

Per the AP:

Hillary Rodham Clinton, meanwhile, was expected to decide soon whether to take the job [of Secretary of State in the Obama Administration], which associates said she believes is hers if she wants it. Transition officials for President-elect Barack Obama said the former first lady had not formally been offered the job and other candidates have been vetted. But several Clinton associates said Obama has told her she is his top pick.

My first reaction was to immediately review the line of presidential succession, to count how many Secret Service teams will need to be beefed up once Hillary is formally in line for succession to the Oval Office. The answer is four:  Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi (as Speaker of the House), and Robert Byrd (as President Pro Tempore of the Senate).

Biden and Byrd would have to get used to spending lots of time in lonely, undisclosed locations, I suspect ? never in the same room with the other two.

On the merits: As always, I'm disappointed to see either Clinton taken seriously for any serious responsibility because they are completely amoral, and their effectiveness is overrated. But there are worse alternatives for this job, and worse alternatives who've already been proposed for other offices. And again, as always with the Clintons, there is the small, cold comfort that their overwhelming ambition to retain power will probably compel Hillary to triangulate to some extent, rather than being an utter captive to the MoveOn.com/dKos Hard Left Dems.

Obama, by contrast, is wimping out big-time if he's seriously considering this appointment. In his own mind, he excuses that, probably, by thinking he's Lincoln and Hillary will be one of his Team of Rivals. Rivals he can find, but he's no Lincoln, and the point of Doris Kearns Goodwin's excellent book about Lincoln's cabinet was in part that only a Lincoln can succeed in riding herd over a team whose members are pulling in different directions. Since my priority is the future of the Nation rather than the specific success of Obama's particular administration, I'm somewhat more reassured by the Clinton triangulation likelihood than I'm distressed by the Obama emasculation likelihood.

Full post as published by BeldarBlog on November 19, 2008 (boomark / email).