Hillary’s Biggest Obstacle, Again, Is Her Husband
It’s Bill Clinton’s finances, rather than his rumored-to-be-still-present zipper problem, that is on course to potentially derail HRC as SoS:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is President-elect Barack Obama’s first choice for secretary of State but his aides are becoming exasperated by the Clinton camp’s pokey response to demands for extensive information about former President Bill Clinton’s finances, according to numerous Democrats involved in the process.
“The sense among the no-drama Obama world is: This is well on its way to winning best Oscar for drama,” said one well-connected Democratic official.
There are signs, however, that the Clintons may move decisively to satisfy the vetting requests in coming days, clearing the way for a “Team of Rivals” Cabinet that would bring the president-elect’s opponent for the Democratic nomination into his historic administration.
Democratic officials make it sound as if the job has been all but offered to Hillary Clinton. But the ball is in her court to show that the former president’s many foreign and financial entanglements would not pose huge conflicts of interest if she were the nation’s chief diplomat, the officials said.
Obama isn’t likely to formally offer the post to Clinton unless he’s given assurances that Bill Clinton’s global charitable foundation won’t create future conflicts of interest with foreign governments, according to a person familiar with the situation.
My advice to Obama (I’m sure he’s reading): look elsewhere, as Bill will find some way to humiliate his wife and the administration…but if this report in the Guardian is to be believed (and I’m not at all sure I believe it), it’s already too late:
Hillary Clinton plans to accept the job of secretary of state offered by Barack Obama, who is reaching out to former rivals to build a broad coalition administration, the Guardian has learned.
Obama’s advisers have begun looking into Bill Clinton’s foundation, which distributes millions of dollars to Africa to help with development, to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. But Democrats do not believe that the vetting is likely to be a problem.
Hmmm…”the Guardian has learned”, “vetting [unlikely] to be a problem”…sounds like a very thinly sourced attempt at getting a scoop, by a reporter (and a paper) unbothered by troublesome journalistic ideas like ‘corroboration’ and ‘proper sourcing’…
If Obama should “look elsewhere,” who do you think he should offer the job to instead?
Let me trot out on old favorite: Sam Nunn…
Mark, are you a relative of ol’ Sam?
Nothing wrong with Sam Nunn, but perhaps his day has passed. Colin Powell? Bill Richardson? Dennis Ross?
How can Sam Nunn’s day have passed and not Colin Powell’s? And if Powell is on the list, why not Madeline Albright? Besides, I believe Powell may have served in a similar position in the previous administration. Can we really afford moreofthesame?
Bill Richardson? Doesn’t the position of secretary of state require some semblance of intelligence or at least an ability to communicate? What good is a diplomat who can’t form a coherent sentence?
Dennis Ross would be a reasonable choice, IMO. However, Obama’s core constituency has a few reasons to hate him with a passion: He Jewish and he initially supported the liberation of Iraq (that makes him one of those evil neo-cons), and according to John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, he’s part of the shadowy Israel Lobby that puts Zionist interests ahead of American ones. Oh, and harvests Palestinians’ organs to make matzo.
If Obama can’t have Hillary, he’ll probably have to settle for Kerry, Rice (no, the other one) or Power.
Bob, I just like him, that’s all – no kickbacks, alas – we share a passion for fighting nuclear proliferation…but I don’t think he’s even on the radar, just my personal choice…
Maybe Hillary should finally dump her boat anchor of a husband?
Albright, again? Please, she and Kerry are the worst possible choices. Powell’s day hasn’t passed because it never was. If the late 80’s and the 90’s are the time when the forces of anti-Western terrorism came to power, how can you suggest anyone that was in power at that time? How about we find someone with good ideas, that isn’t some tired old political hack, for this most important Cabinet position.
I think Nunn makes a lot of sense for DOD (I also think Clinton makes more sense for DOD than State), and I’d love to see him end up there. And I’ll take Aaron’s offer of Samantha Power for State. I would be downright ecstatic if that happened, although I think she makes far more sense for something like National Security Advisor.
I know very little about Samantha Power, which means she passes my “not the same old political hacks” test. Why do you like her so?
Oh, and I really like Hillary simply because I think she is smart, serious, and more committed to getting things done than playing politics (as compared to, say, Richardson, Kerry, and Powell).
Samantha Power called Hillary a “monster” during the campaign. She had to quit the Obama campaign.
He He, their first meeting should be fun.
Things I like about Power:
1. Her career trajectory goes from journalist to academic. She’s not a politician and so, rather than grandstand about the world’s foreign policy problems, she’s actually spent her time on the ground trying to understand the cultures involved.
2. She’s pretty seriously dedicated to the idea of Palestinian statehood. Since no amount of justice or reconciliation can be achieved without a two-state solution, I think someone who has spoken out about investing money into peacekeeping efforts rather than the Israeli military makes a lot of sense.
3. She called Clinton a monster. I’m not the world’s biggest Clinton hater, but her behavior during the primaries was borderline unconscionable at points. Also, it’s refreshing that Power isn’t afraid to actually speak her mind (although following her dismissal from the campaign that may no longer be true).
What I don’t like about Power is her insistence on the idea of armed intervention to prevent “genocide”. I think one thing that we’ve learned over the past 50 years (at least) is that interference (military or otherwise) into the internal affairs of other nations is both unjust and either ineffective or counterproductive. Even when the activities taking place interfere with our delicate notions of right and wrong, we rarely actually make the world a better place by violating the sovereignty of other nations. So I’m not crazy about Power’s predilection for putting boots on the ground in places like Darfur, but otherwise I think she would be a really inspired (and “change”-y) sort of pick.
I just saw a headline on RCP about Richard Holbrooke lobbying for the spot as well. Of course, he doesn’t quite pass the “not a political hack” test either.
Here’s what Powers said about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict:
“Putting something on the line might mean alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import; [She's talking about Jews, just so we're clear] it may more crucially mean sacrificing — or investing, I think, more than sacrificing — billions of dollars, not in servicing Israel’s military, but actually investing in the new state of Palestine, [That's right; when we spend money to develop the infrastructure in an oil rich country that we can reasonably hope will develop into a serious ally, it's a wasteful sacrifice; when we pour billions into a worthless patch of desert whose major export has been assassinations and bombings and whose raison d'être is the destruction of its neighbor, we call that "investing"] in investing the billions of dollars it would probably take, also, to support what will have to be a mammoth protection force, [So our military isn't overstretched all of a sudden? I guess we're never stretched too thin to invade Israel!] not of the old Rwanda kind, but a meaningful military presence. Because it seems to me at this stage (and this is true of actual genocides as well, and not just major human rights abuses, which were seen there), you have to go in as if you’re serious, you have to put something on the line.”
I suspect that most Obamatons will be able to put aside their reservations about interventionism, since it’s really not interventionism, per se, that they oppose. It’s interventionism against America’s enemies. As long as she’s talking about invading Israel, they’ll be overjoyed. Do you know if she’s advocated the same course of action in Colombia as well? FARC’s taken a beating under Uribe. Maybe we ought to go in and protect them.
After I posted earlier I looked her up and had an “oh, THAT Samantha Powers” moment when I realized she used to write for one of my local papers, The Boston Globe.
I do like that she is a fresh-ish player on the scene, and that she is well-studied on international matters.
You know, perhaps the Palestinians would be less of a threat to Israel, and stability in the region, if they had a state to call their own. It’s not like the approaches taken to date have worked so fabulously well that trying something new and different is a completely insane idea. The hero GWB supports a two-state solution.
Yes, but very few Palestinians do…that’s the dirty little secret of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinian majority, alas (and I know this from good sources who are from the region and still have family there) do NOT WANT a state of their own. They want one state, where they will quickly become the majority because of demographics and thus, kill Israel as we know it today without firing a shot…
Well, I think it’s slightly more complicated than that. The large majority of Palestinians support the creation of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders. A smaller (but reasonably significant) majority do in fact reject the idea of a two-state solution because they reject the existence of Israel. That’s certainly a delicate problem, but the solution isn’t to maintain the status quo. The fastest way to turn a 55-45 majority opposed to the existence of Israel into a 90-10 majority is to maintain the current trajectory. And, contra Aaron, I think it’s deeply unhelpful when conservative (and liberal) supporters of Israel (I am trying not to demonize anyone, so I’m not putting scare quotes on any of that) characterize Palestinians as anyone’s enemy.
I don’t believe you really have a handle on the pulse of the Palestinians. My Palestinian source assures me that the right of return is sacred, and the one-state solution is the only one that Hamas will support (and he frequently provides me with links to Arab media outlets to prove it). It’s because Fatah supports the two-state solution that it has almost zero support on the Palestinian ’street’.
If the Palestinians truly wanted a two-state solution, even within 1967 borders, they could have had it by now. Israel is tired of fighting, and wary of the demographic time bomb in their midst. If the Palestinians would give up claims such as the ‘right of return’ (a thinly veiled attempt to, again, destroy Israel from within through demographics), the two-state solution could be implemented in months.
Let’s also be clear that the one-state solution favored by the majority of Palestinians would, by definition, not be a Jewish state – thus Israel would lose its essential identity even before the demographics kicked in…
Let me say what I mean in perhaps a more effective (and certainly a much shorter) way: the dirtiest word a Palestinian knows is “Zionist”…
Well, I think some of that is right, but I also think you are taking anecdote as the singular of data. Public opinion polling shows Palestinians at about 55-45 against the existence of Israel. That’s a real majority, but it doesn’t strike me as a reason to deny them self-determination. And continuing in that denial only makes Hamas’ position stronger.