Hoping Hillary Says Yes
Sitting less than ten feet from Hillary Clinton at an RFK Memorial event in New York this week, I was overwhelmed by the presence and power the woman carries with her wherever she goes. Charming and poised as she was inundated by admirers, I could not help but think how hard it was, in some sense, to vote for Obama over Senator Clinton. I was momentarily overcome thinking how I wish both of them could have won.
Like many, I believed that Obama had the better chance to beat McCain. That turned out to be a good bet. Now the notion of Mrs. Clinton as Secretary of State looms over her every utterance and move and I pray that this becomes a reality.
Statesmanship had been the most important tool in a president's toolbox until Cheney and Rumsfeld moved into the West Wing. During Bush's administration, the Department of Defense, war and war profiteering eclipsed any real hope for diplomatic solutions. Perhaps Mrs. Clinton will right the ship and make it once again possible that America's diplomatic voice is clear and convincing, backed up by power of America's military only on a truly as-needed basis.
The president can not go to every corner of the world that requires his attention. Who better to send than the one American who can represent him and all of America with an equivalent intellect, dedication and dynamism. I hope she says yes.
And I hope Chuck Hagel is Defense Secretary. A Vietnam vet. A Republican who understands the world isn't one ongoing bar fight. A man we can all respect and who won't sell us out so that KBR and Carlyle Group investors get rich.
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Alec, you must have looked into her soul, huh?
Do you think she'll look n to the mirror each morning and be able to say " I work for Barack Obama, to carry out HIS agenda"?
This is the one who said McCain was a better candidate than Obama.
This is the one who " ducked and ran from sniper fire."
This is the one who said "hard-working Americans, white Americans, want me."
This is the who who couldn't make decisions in her own campaign, and who ran out of money and into debt.
This is NOT the one we need.
seems like YOU must have looked into her soul, right?
pffftttt.
"Do you think she'll look n to the mirror each morning and be able to say " I work for Barack Obama, to carry out HIS agenda"?"
ummm, NO- I don't.
I think she will wake up each morning and say I work for the citizens of the United States, serving them with President Obama to put our country first and working out the foreign policy agenda with him and his advisors along with the rest of the team.
Do your homework- HRC is a team player, has been praised as such and has an intelligence and breadth of knowledge on whichever issue she is tackling that has been often commented on in the Senate from all sides.
If you paid attention you would hear the silence that comes from those who actually have the experience and knowledge of working with Clinton in the Senate. These aren't people known for their reticence in criticizing their colleagues yet what you most hear about HRC is her diligence, her scope of understanding, her incredible knowledge on the issues at hand and her willingness and ability to work with people not against them.
As to the rest of your petty troll comments- grow up, let it go, move on.
When it came down to BO and McCain I thought "at least there won't be a Bush or Clinton around, for the first time in 20 years". Now like a bad back......
SC Justice?
If only.
I think Hillary's intellect is more than up to the SC, but the SC would be a waste of her extraordinary political skills.
Yes. The dream team.
See Anne Hill's Profile
I don't know, I was looking forward to her being the next Lion of the Senate. I think she would make a good Secretary of State, but I don't understand why she would want the post. What's her next move after that?
Isn't it obvious. She's only 61. Prez in 2016.
I think this may be it for HRC. There are too many Senior senators ahead of her so the odds of her moving into high leadership was too low. If she serves 2 terms, she could run at 69 years old, but we'll have to see how vibrant she still is. I cannot remember the last SOS to directly run and win the Presidency. Obama was first elected since Kennedy that was a Senator. People like Govs since they have more exec experience and less votes to tie them down. She could be a very strong SOS like Marshall, Acheson, or Dulles.
Ann Hill,
To be a Lion of the Senate... can you do that as the Junior Senator? I though perhaps you had be more Ted Kennedy-like and be there long enough to have a history, chairmanships and the like...
I think you need serious time there, more than 8 years to be sure...
I agree through time she could be a Lion... but definitely not with a hiatus from elected office to work as an appointed official. Also an association directly with the President prevents her from running on a platform of "Change" in 8 years. She won't be able to take Biden out in the primaries by saying how she'll do things differently. Plus any serious blunders made by Obama get tagged to her as a member of his staff...
If she stays a Senator she gets another run at the Oval Office with a chance of winning, if she goes SOS, thats as far as she goes on the political stage.
Well said, Alec! I had the honor of meeting Sen. Clinton this summer at an event in Washington, DC. She was about one foot away from me as I shook her hand. She is absolutely stunning and charismatic in person. This meeting was after she conceded to Obama and started campaigning for him. I admired her for her courage to pick herself up after an intense and exhausting primary, and go back out there to campaign for her recent opponent when most people would have taken the rest of the summer off. Instead, she understood the urgency for the future of our country to do what she could to get Obama elected. As we shook hands, I thanked her for all that she did, and I could see her appreciation for my gratitude reflected in her eyes. Hillary is not only intensely charismatic, she is intelligent, caring, skillful, and entirely devoted to her country. She will make a wonderful Secretary of State.
A sane voice in the wilderness ... I too believe Senator Clinton will be a brilliant SOS and strong emissary of Obama's foreign policy. I am baffled and frankly apalled at supporters of the president-elect who show so little regard for his judgment and wisdom in this, one of his first and most pivotal decisions. He has our backs, do we not owe him the same faith and loyalty?
hardybear
Sorry to say that the coming year will be filled with heartache at Obama's broken promises. I'm not saying he won't be a great president.
Faith and loyalty because he has our backs? Come on. Never trust the government, your candidate or the other guy's... That is at the heart of the Constitution as well. The Framers have basically said the power is with the people, not with the officials.
Like I said I think Obama will be great, but he is no demigod and should not be followed blindly.
Your wish is granted. HRC accepted the post. This country has lost it's credibility around the world and her presence will hopefully create a lasting credibility that is so critical to meet the challenges of this ever changing world conflict.
I love Joe Biden, and while he has experienced in diplomacy in the late 80's, 90's and his view that Iraq should be fragmented, that kind of diplomacy was effective in the 20th century. The world has changed, and Biden's kind of diplomacy is not coming back. This is the 21th century, I do believe HRC will meet that need.
She'll be an exemplary.
While I can appreciate Alex 's experience at being in the presence of Clinton and will even concede that were the choices Palin or Clinton I might be moved to vote Clintons way ... still this election exposed even more troubling aspects in the Clinton makeup. I know ... I know ... the nomination is over and all is supposedly forgiven but ... well ... if there is any other real choice.
To those of you here who are strongly opposed to Hillary Clinton as SOS and are contemplating taking specific action to protest this, I urge you to reconsider. This is not the time for infighting.
My support of Barack Obama is not conditional on him doing everything that I want. I realize that he has a daunting task ahead of him. He will have to make difficult choices. Some of his decisions may not be particularly popular, or palatable to some of us. But he must follow his own convictions and instincts and beliefs. He can't sit there and think about who may be offended every time he takes action. He has an economy to fix, jobs to create, foreclosures to stop, a war to end in Iraq, regulations on financial institutions and corporations to enforce. Can't we give him a break?
I frankly do not understand all of the Clnton hate. I never have. Look at what we had under the Bush administration. We DO have change. The days of Republican laissez-faire free market economics are now over. We will have a government with decent, upstanding, dedicated public officials who will actually serve the people who elected them. We will have a president who respects and believes in the Constitution.
Barack Obama is surrounding himself with the best people and I have confidence that he will restore our country.
The problem I, and many others, have with Clinton is with what she didn't do in the past 7 years as the most famous politician in America, the de facto leader of the opposition to the worst administration in US history: she did not oppose Dick Cheney and George W Bush.
She did not challenge their lies, she did not propose any alternative to their world view.
Where was her voice on Iraq? Where was her voice on torture? Where was her voice on deregulation?
She single-handedly epitomizes the cluelessness and spinelessness of the Democratic Party in the Bush era.
Her supposed 'toughness' is actually Cheney-like hawkishness ("totally obliterate Iran", etc.), or Rove-like campaigning ("isn't Barack Obama a Muslim?"), both indicating that she is not tough at all in the defense of the American People and the Constitution, but rather in that of her own career advancement and the interests of her rich and powerful friends in Washington and the Pentagon.
The wild adulation of otherwise lucid people like Mr Baldwin is an amazing testimony to the hypnotic power of celebrity and name-recognition over substance in this country.
Just ask yourself: what did she do in the past 7 years as leader of the opposition to oppose the Bush administration and its crimes???
the answer to that is: Nothing. No courage. No vision.
I totally agree with you. I watched Clinton's behavior closely during her Senate days and didn't see her do even one outstanding thing the whole time. She always played it safe and kept aloof. I guess the big question is will she be influenced by Kissinger and his crowd when she takes over the reins at State?
"Just ask yourself: what did she do in the past 7 years as leader of the opposition to oppose the Bush administration and its crimes???
the answer to that is: Nothing. No courage. No vision."
Really? Last time I checked, she had voted against FISA (unlike Obama). Also within a couple of weeks of the primaries she made the clarion call re: Bush's attempts to abridge more reproductive freedoms. Could she have done more? Sure. But to say she has done nothing is willfully ignorant.
"I frankly do not understand all of the Clnton hate."
It wasn't a Clinton hate, as much as it was a hate for anyone who did not support Obama. Clinton and McCain both did their time as the devil incarnate. It is some kind of tribal thing that occurs with some Repubs and Dems. Although in the case of Obama, some people took it to the extreme perhaps due to the emotional involvement. Of course the minute you criticize, then you are a troll, even though I voted for Obama. Good thing is you can now see that Obama does not have any time for these partisans as he now moves to the center. And it must be difficult for some who a few months ago turned Clinton into the devil incarnate, to now have her possibly in the administration.
Well Alec...
I've admired and supported Hillary Clinton since her days in the White House as our nation's First Lady, and I sent letters to my state representatives telling them so. But I cannot understand all this back and forth "will she or won't she", controversy concerning the Sec. of State appointment.
I would like to see her run again for President in 2016, and Lord knows I would support her. But I do not want her to accept the job as Sec. of State if she does not want to work as a faithful team player with the Obama Administration. I really want President Elect, Obama to succeed in pulling our nation out of our present economic, and global situation and if there are people around him that do not want to work with him, then I believe they should remain where they are.
Alec, I like your opinion about Hillary if she and her hubbie can avoid upstaging President Obama and take "No" as an answer here and there. I assume you read these comments at the H Post. Here is a serious question for your consideration: "Do the top tier Hollywood stars deserve 10, 20, 40 million dollars per movie?' Is this not an analogous situation to CEOs making those amounts of money?
One big difference is that Actors can't fail often and still get that money. CEO's do. And Some CEO are making 600M dollars not just tens of millions.
And if an actor's project fails, he/she's star power is diminished. These CEO"s just seem to move from failed corp to failed corp and still drawing the same ridiculous wages. They are teflon!
research,
be real, you are saying that CEOs don't regularly loose their jobs over performance? It happens much more regularly than trading quarterbacks. ANd Actors still get money in the form or residuals. You only make one hit and you get paid for life, anytime someone rents a movie or its shown on TV, forever... so yes actors always get THAT money.
Actors, like professional sports figures, are grossly overpaid. But that's not their fault. It's a quirk of the entertainment industry that competes for a very small pool of proven talent - or "box office", if you will. However they don't write the studio head's pay checks. CEOs, on the other hand, write the checks to the board of directors who determine their salary. These CEOs would argue that the same principle of a limited pool of talent applies, but if that's the case, why to so many with deadly "box office" continue to secure starring roles?
Entertainers and athletes are not hurting anyone when they are well paid. Unlike many CEO's who don't pay there employees well, have offshore accounts and profit from wars.
nevadagirl:
Entertainers and athletes are not hurting anyone when they are well paid.
ahem, first, the production costs of movies or the costs of owning a team skyrocket, these are passed down to fans in ticket prices.
If you think the batboy is getting fairly paid, or the keygrip etc... give me a break. Entertainment is corporate too you know, and entertainers and athletes often get a great piece of the pie than they deserve. And they have as many offshore accounts as any CEO...
Many CEOs deserve to make a lot of money becaus ethey are responsible for hundreds or thousands of people's day to day living. CEOs really only shaft the employees when the stockholders say so... a whole other group of people they are responsible to... which includes you if you have a 401k.
Spot on.
I never understood why so many people seem to hate her. They judge her without even knowing her. I hope she accepts the SoS job. She would be perfect for it.
Some MSM and others are pure jealous. Others hold women to higher standards and are more judgmental of women than men. Thus having a problem with women authority figures.
Hillary would be excellent as the SOS and is well qualified for the position. President-elect Obama needs to be able to put his primary focus on the economy. We have serious economical problems; that if not dealt with immediately we could face another Depression.
I agree, Hillary would be an excellent SOS and is well qualified.
Others ARE holding women to a higher standard, and it needs to end. Women are not more intelligent, they do not have higher standards, and they do not have better ideas than men. What women do have are intelligence, high standards, and good ideas.
Let's take the fight out of the clouds and back down to tree level.
'Time for Change' ended quickly, did it not? It was a great game plan. Full of inspiration, new ideas and promises for innovative new paths. BANG! the bullets of cabinet considerations and commitments is killing me. The only happiness I could find in HRC appointment is if I lived in NY and saw her board the plane.
You can put the Bull Horns on your Silverado, but it's still a Chevy. This is a new day and S.O.S. to me.
And the rest of this gang is almost equally S.O.S. If Hagel is smart he will decline joining this group.
I pressume the first order of business for HRC is where she can get the funds to pay her campaign debt. How about a bailout?
Can we give the "Time for Change ending quickly," with regard to Obama's Clinton era appointments a rest? There's a new captain at the helm, doll. Just becaust he's picking all-stars from another President's team it doesn't logically follow that we're in for a repeat of the Clinton presidency. Time has not stood still; we've had a bruising 8 years between now and then and a real CHANGE has emerged out of that. That's how Obama landed the job. He's the new captain and I'll be damed if I see any evidence of him repeating a Bill Clinton-esque presidency.
It's absurd to suggest that "Time for Change" has ended, presumably because Obama is appointing some familiar names from the Clinton years. Even if he installed the Clinton cabinet en masse would not the remembered peace and prosperity of the Clinton years be a gigantic change over the corruption and incompetency of the Cheney-Bush mis-administration?
In any case, Obama will be setting policy and expecting the enthusiastic participation of his cabinet. I have seen little indication that he would accept anything less.
Spot on. Having viewed Senator Clinton's strength and courage in waging a hard fight, then battling further to see Obama elected I see little argument for doubting her devotion to her party and country. She will offer the president-elect the same calibre of loyalty and dedication as SOS. Personally, I couldn't be more grateful that we have such an embarrassment of riches in our new administration.
I would vote for that "bailout".
Alec,
You make very interesting points.
We have been through eight years have not only crippled America, but have plunged the world so far into the abyss that only the most careful planning and action will get us all back into solvency and security again.
The Bush administration has managed through it's careful policy of promoting cronies, hacks and folks who couldn't otherwise function in a world where ethics and service above one's own self interests to place the economic and physical well being behind the interests of the party.
To reach out to Hillary Clinton at least shows that again the President Elect is trying to bring in the brightest and most capable cabinet members to take on this most monumental task of undoing what GWB and his cabal have brought the world's economy and well being.
I hear a lot of folks complaining that there are far too many Clinton administration alum into the new administration.
That may be true, but most of the Carter alum are too old or not with us anymore to be of much help in this epic undertaking.
The best we can hope for is that the President that we clearly elected will respond to the mandate of the people and continue to bring the best and brightest available people to serve the people of our country and help the rest of the world recover from the last eight years of the Bush disaster.
Moreover, First Thing First:- NO CLINTON-RE
Are Cab. Positions offered to Those With The Most Connections In The Media? The Media is Lobbying For The Clintons And We Are Silent. How About Those Who Supported Prez From The Start?
we the people, we will never accept Hillar as SOS.
69,000,000 voted for CHANGE, change in Foreign and Domestic Policies. We must unite to ask Prez-Obama to not give-in to Media Lobying for The Clintons.
I am asking you to join me in e-mailing (Millions Of You!!!) to obama-camp (Not Transition Team - They are Infested By Clinton People)Voices For Cange. Do it before he "Officially" offers her the post.
Republicans are already at College Campuses (my daughter just called me) telling students " You voted For Chane and You Got Clintons Re-instated blah blah.. and that they should join "Young Republicans, and the Obama "lied" to them all. I know many on this blog are clinton supporter, but the primaries fight is over - Obama won both times and at a far greater numbers than even the primaries. Also, there is speculation that Joe Biden will resign if SOS goes to Hillary ( I don't think this is true-because they are friends) Republicans are using her to take the youth away from Obama.
I'm sure that are a lot of regular and irregular folks who don't agree with you Baldwin - maybe she just overwhelms those who can be easily overwhelmed - I hope she is not picked as SOS and that she moves on to earn her own way - Dignity, integrity and honesty is required as well as intellect, dedication and dynamism -
May I presume to infer that you also feel Obama has a deficit of wisdom, judgment and integrity? Some dedication to the support of his choices wouldn't come amiss, perhaps.
"we the people, we will never accept Hillar as SOS."
What are you the people going to do about it?
This is Obama's best judgement. Are you saying YOU know better than he does?
I was an Obama supporter, with money, effort and vote, believing he advocated distinct change from the Clinton era and certainly from Bush-Cheney. Appointments of Rahm Emmanuel, John Podesta, and Hillary Clinton raises serious doubt about Obama's promises for change. He is naming Clinton-ites and hawks, those who support the "Patriot" Act and the invasion of Iraq, who blatantly lied and misled to advance themselves, not for the country or its citizens. During the campaign HRC actually campaigned for MCCAIN being suprior to Obama! That alone should have relegated the Clintons to history, not the hopeful future! Obama's embracing of Clinton reminds one of John McCain's pathetic embracing of George Bush who had said and done terrible things to him, far in excess of "usual" campaign tactics. That sad McCain moment repulsed me and I am having similar reactions to Obama's embracing of the Clintons. Many "real" Democrats do not revere the Clintons and what they have done to the Democratic party. Emmanuel and Clinton who like NAFTA, support the Iraq invasion and war expansion? That is change? Hillary Clinton did NOTHING to try to help the horribly oppressed women of Afghanistan under the Taliban as First Lady, nor for the tragedy in Rwanda. She supported the pointless bombing and sanctions against Iraq when she and Bill were the "two for one" presidency. She embraced Yasser Arafat. Now she's going to be Sec. of State?
What are you going to do when Gates is asked to stay on by Obama? Get your binky and cry!!!! No that is not true about Biden resigning, he and Hillary are good friends. Why are you here trying to stir things up. This is not what this country needs right now, how self-centered, with all the problems facing President-elect Obama.
To where would Obama look for a strong cabinet if not to those who served in previous Democratic
administrations? I suspect that JFK, LBJ and Carter staffers won't come out of retirement or back from the grave to fill the posts. Does not supporting Obama and his core philosophies require faith in his judgment and wisdom, not to mention respect therein? You are correct, the fight is over. Take a leaf from Obama's new chapter and recognize that the real opposition does not lie in our party ... but they do gleefully delight in seeing this level of Democratic infighting undermine our future and the effectiveness of the upcoming administration. I would give the youth a great deal more credit as well.
They have earned it, and Obama deserves our loyalty going forward.
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