{"id":120,"date":"2008-11-18T11:46:21","date_gmt":"2008-11-18T11:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2008\/11\/hillary-clintons-foggy-bottom.html"},"modified":"2008-11-18T11:46:21","modified_gmt":"2008-11-18T11:46:21","slug":"hillary-clintons-foggy-bottom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/11\/hillary-clintons-foggy-bottom.html","title":{"rendered":"Hillary Clinton’s Foggy Bottom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hillary Clinton will be Secretary of State in the Obama Administration<\/a>. This is significant for many reasons, not least of which because Hillary is perfect for the job and is supremely qualified for it. Arguably, the more important reason will be because of what her selection tells us about the character of Obama’s Presidency.<\/p>\n

Joe Klein wrote a great piece a few days ago about how Obama intends to model his Administration and his Cabinet after Abraham Lincoln’s “Team of Rivals”<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

\nObama has said he admires Doris Kearns Goodwin’s wonderful Lincoln biography, Team of Rivals<\/i>.
\n“He talks about it all the time,” says a top aide. He is particularly
\nintrigued by the notion that Lincoln assembled all the Republicans who
\nhad run against him for President in his war Cabinet, some of whom
\ndisagreed with him vehemently and persistently. “The lesson is to not
\nlet your ego or grudges get in the way of hiring absolutely the best
\npeople,” Obama told me. “I don’t think the American people are
\nfundamentally ideological. They’re pragmatic<\/b> … and so I have an
\ninterest in casting a wide net, seeking out people with a wide range of
\nexpertise, including Republicans,” for the highest positions in his
\ngovernment. … “I don’t want to have people who just
\nagree with me,” he said. “I want people who are continually pushing me
\nout of my comfort zone.”<\/b> Obama said he’d be particularly interested in
\nhaving high-ranking Republicans advising him on defense and national
\nsecurity. “I really admire the way the elder Bush negotiated the end of
\nthe Cold War — with discipline, tough diplomacy and restraint … and
\nI’d be very interested in having those sorts of Republicans in my
\nAdministration, especially people who can expedite a responsible and
\norderly conclusion to the Iraq war — and who know how to keep the
\nhammer down on al-Qaeda.” <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What a contrast from the Bush Administration! It should be noted that it’s virtually certain Obama will make good on this philosophy by retaining Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. However, the philosophy also applies to his rivals within the Democratic tent. The best example is his selection of Joe Biden for Vice-president, who differed with Obama about the Iraq war. During the selection process, Obama noted that he was looking for a Veep who would disagree with him and force him to think “outside the box” and in Biden he has found exactly that.<\/p>\n

Just like Biden (only far more successfully so), Hillary is literally<\/i> a rival to Obama, and it was the strength of her challenge that readied Obama to face McCain in the general election. Likewise, the challenge of having her as Secretary of State will be an asset in and of itself for Obama – this is something that the progressive left doesn’t seem to understand<\/a>. <\/p>\n

It is true that Clinton had been critical<\/a> during the primary of Obama’s willingness to engage in diplomacy with “rogue nations”, but then she herself acknowledged she’s engage in much the same thing. Neither Obama not Clinton were talking about personal sit-downs with Ahmadinejad, but rather engaging Iran using high-level diplmats and envoys (including, perhaps, the Secreary of State). It is also true that Clinton talked of “obliterating” Iran<\/a>, but the context of that was in the hypothetical scenario of Iran launching a nuclear attack<\/i> on Israel (something that Iran lacks the capability to do, and which Iran would be deterred from doing even if it had that capability, partly because of strong and obvious-to-everyone statements of truth like Clinton’s was). Clinton and Obama sparred on these controversies during the primary, but neither was as significant as those with an instinctual aversion to Clinton (or Obama, for that matter) claim.<\/p>\n

All in all, Hillary is an inspired choice for Secretary of State, and there’s a lot of arenas sorely neglected by the current Administration – most notably the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – where she stands to be able to bring a fresh approach and face to the diplomatic challenge ahead. It’s good for the country and the world for her to be SecState, and it shows that Obama is serious about putting his Country First.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hillary Clinton will be Secretary of State in the Obama Administration. This is significant for many reasons, not least of which because Hillary is perfect for the job and is supremely qualified for it. Arguably, the more important reason will be because of what her selection tells us about the character of Obama’s Presidency. Joe…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[29,134,141,43,26,95],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nation-building","category-purple-politics","tag-barack-obama","tag-election-day-08","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-obama-administration","tag-politics","tag-presidential-election"],"yoast_head":"\nHillary Clinton's Foggy Bottom - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hillary Clinton's Foggy Bottom - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hillary Clinton will be Secretary of State in the Obama Administration. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}