The Obama transition and cabinet

[skdadl]

People seem convinced that Obama is going to offer the State Dep't to Hillary. I haven't been keeping up this aft, so I don't know where the news has come from, but here is a reading of what it might mean to have Hillary at State from Ian Welsh.

[Toedancer]

Sullivan is psyched about it Iron Lady v Iran/Russia

[skdadl]

Oh, dear. We're never going to like their foreign policy, are we.  

[Mandos]

We never were.  I never bought into the idea that HRC was particularly or egregiously bad on foreign policy.  She is Business As Usual and so would anyone be in that position.

[brebis noire]

Why is it that it's so easy to nominate a woman Secretary of State? Maybe this is a stupid question, and I usually find US foreign policy to be hard to swallow at the best of times, but do I have a good reason to be suspicious of the fact that women are easily named to this post? Like, much more easily than say, top finances person, or another significant Cabinet position?

[Mandos]

Finance people are drawn from fields whose upper echelons are far more male-dominated than foreign policy circles are.  This is unfortunately true of a lot of the high-profile cabinet posts.

[Toedancer]

Because they can be FIRED. This will be the U.S. 67th SoS, yet it's the 44th President.

[brebis noire]

I thought it was because they feel a good SoS should be someone with a weird but winning combination of hardnosedness (in appearance) and docility (in function). And no specific field of expertise, as Mandos mentioned. Gah, I don't like what I'm saying, but I'm feeling grumpy about Clinton being named to that post, it seems very predictable somehow.

[skdadl]

Or Colin Powell before Condi? Too much the gentleman?

There is something to your suspicion, brebis noire. The macho boys know vaguely that they need good diplomacy, but they think of diplomacy as something soft. Especially since the neocons took over, the SoS has had to fight for respect because the frat boys are all more enchanted with doing intel and special ops and sexy crooked stuff like that.

I don't remember the SoS being disrespected and played around so much in the past. Maybe it was just a BushCo thing. Cheney and Rumsfeld played Powell for a fool, and then Cheney just ignored Condi. But that may be unique to this set of crooks. No one played Albright for a fool, eg, and I don't think that Obama would or could do that to Clinton.

[Mandos]

An alleg(at)ory:

Look, up in the sky! Just there over the mountains and under the clouds and behind the pulleys and levers they use to raise and lower the sun there's the shine of a plate and a flaky brown crust and the sweet smell of fresh fruit filling and could it be... could it be pie?

http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/fri ... ng-of.html

[Alison]

Wow.

[Catchfire]

What are the chances she will take the job? Is it something she is interested in? It does seem like a perfect fit, and a nice gesture for 'party unity' for the Democrats.

Of course, it's bloody horrible for the Middle East, North Korea, South America and Cuba. And the rest of the world.

[skdadl]

Well, we're still definitely at the tea-leaves-reading stage -- there are lots of people who also think this is a Clinton move to undercut Kerry and Richardson, since the only leaks seem to be coming from Clinton people.

This could get boring. Except I'm waiting for a good AG.

[pogge]

Via Josh Marshall, Bill Richardson has had discussions with Obama about State.

[GDKitty]

An alleg(at)ory:

Look, up in the sky! Just there over the mountains and under the clouds and behind the pulleys and levers they use to raise and lower the sun there's the shine of a plate and a flaky brown crust and the sweet smell of fresh fruit filling and could it be... could it be pie?

http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/fri ... ng-of.html

: Genius.