Goodbye Hillary, we hardly knew ya.... Post a comment

As I had predicted, Obama's appointed of Hillary clinton is looking more and more like a brilliant political move to eliminate what would have been a formidable enemy.

What he did, was simply out politic her again, as he did in the primaries.

First, he made sure that she would get no chariwomanships in the Senate, and had those who were the leaders of her favorite causes, principally Ted Kennedy telling her that she would have no standing on health care as it was his issue.

This was so patently obvious, but like everything with Obama, no one paid attention, or connected the dots that were already connected. What were those? Well who was the first big name heavyweight to support Obama? Um... right, Ted Kennedy. And who (and this is truly sad) won't last the year? Ted Kennedy.

So why prevent Hillary from working on this issue (and not give her chair positions of other committees she had served on, foreign affairs, etc)?

Next, after she accepts the nomination as Secretary of State, Obama than appoints EVERY other diplomatic and national security position with folks who are not only in opposition to her, but are avowed enemies.

But even more than that, he has systematically removed the authority of the Secretary of State position.

He installs Donna Rice, a truly dangerous woman, as the UN Representative, and declares his intent to make this a cabinet position. So, Hillary will no longer have authority of our actions at the UN.

He than puts James Jones, as National Security Advisor, a man whose claim to fame is taking credit for reduced terrorism in Jenin, when in point of fact it is the fence that has done it, and nothing to do with his "advising" as the Israelis would be happy to tell you.

And like Rice, he advocates "protecting" Palestinians from Israelis by putting US Troops in Israel AGAINST the Israelis.

And now the coup de grace. Obama appoints George Mitchell as special Mideast envoy, and Richard Holbrooke as special Pakistan and Afghanistan envoy.

In case you don't know. Special envoys are common. Except that always in the past they were appointed near the END of a process, when agreements were close and constant diplomacy was needed.

But what Obama is saying is "hey, I've got this Secretary of State but she's not good enough to do the really important stuff."

[As an aside, I'd really like the idea of Obama as an underdog or outsider to go away. In the Democratic party, it has always been about the intellectual elite.

The simple fact of the Clintons is that they were tolerated when Bill was winning. But they were always viewed as redneck scum by the coastal elites. Uncouth, uneducated (yes despite Yale and Oxford) and an embarassment.]

This plays it's part in the party dumping Hillary from the Senate and now putting her, the 5th most powerful person in the Country, as invisible as can be....