Nothing suggests pragmatism so much as choosing the uglier of two evils. Senate leader Harry Reid is being raked over the coals by the online left for allowing Senator Joe Lieberman to retain his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. But it was President-Elect Obama's decision. To his activist base, this is a very ugly thing. They have been out to punish Lieberman for his apostasy on Iraq. So vehement was their indignation that the left denied Joe the democratic nomination for his Connecticut Senate seat. He won anyway, as an independent. Now they wanted to see him stripped on his Committee post for backing John McCain. Here, I think, they have a case. It's one thing to kick someone out of the party for dissent on a single issue; it's another to kick him out when he stumps for the other team. The one bottom line demand of all members of a party is that they support the party in elections. But Lieberman wins again, because Obama wants that vote in the Senate. That's politics.
Obama surely chose Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State for similar reasons. Putting her in that important position has got to be irritating to his activist base, many of whom backed him precisely because they wanted to be rid of the Clintons. The Democratic Left sees the Clintons as unprincipled scoundrels (duh!) who would sell off their supporters in a minute for power and prestige. In choosing Clinton, Obama is acting in a clintonian fashion.
But what is his strategy? It seems likely that he wants to put Ms. Clinton under his direct command. In the Senate, she would be a potential competitor, with eyes on the prize down the road. He may want to mollify that part of the Democratic electorate that backed Clinton in the nomination process. After all, they are nearly as large as the part that backed him. A lot of commentary has focused on the problem of Mr. Clinton, who is the kind of fellow to give loose cannons a bad name. But in fact this move gives Obama all sorts of leverage over the philanderer in chief. Bill Clinton is apparently signing all sorts of agreements to behave, including pre-clearance by Obama people for his future speeches. Finally, if the Clintons become a problem, Obama can fire them. That will leave Hillary without a Senate seat under her butt. This looks to be all about controlling the Clintons.
What it isn't about is picking an effective and competent Secretary of State. Hillary Clinton may be adequate. A Secretary of State is not a policy maker. She or he is the face of the Administration in diplomatic relations. Her job will be to do whatever the President tells her to do. Of course, she will be captured by the State Department. That means she will be the advocate of all the stubborn bureaucrats below her. The question then is how well she can govern the ungovernable Foggy Bottom.
Ms. Clinton failed to secure the nomination for President because she was a disastrously bad leader. She chose the incompetent Solis Doyle as her campaign manager, and Solis Doyle ran the campaign into the ground just at the critical time. Ms. Clinton badly managed her campaign funds, and allowed cancerous divisions to grow among her campaign staff. This is the person that Obama has picked to run the State Department. We can only hope that he indeed plans to fire her.
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