Dean of conventional wisdom questions Clinton choice

Even David Broder has serious concerns about Hillary Clinton as secretary of state:

Clinton is the wrong person for that job in this administration. It’s not the best use of her talents, and it’s certainly not the best fit for this new president.

What Obama needs in the person running the State Department is a diplomat who will carry out his foreign policy. He does not need someone who will tell him how to approach the world or be his mentor in international relations. One of the principal reasons he was elected was that, relying on his instincts, he came to the correct conclusion that war with Iraq was not in America’s interest. He was more right about that than most of us in Washington, including Hillary Clinton.

Of course, he will benefit from the counsel and the contacts that his secretary of state can offer. But remember, he provided another and probably more expert source of that wisdom when he picked Joe Biden, the veteran chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as his running mate. The last thing Obama needs is a secretary of state carving out an independently based foreign policy. He needs an agent, not an author.

Then there is the senator’s famous ex-president husband, Bill Clinton:

The former president has, through the Clinton Global Initiative and his own extensive foreign travels and worldwide contacts, made himself a force in international affairs. It would be unfair, and unlikely, for him to shut down his own private foreign policy actions because they might conflict with his wife’s responsibilities. But foreign leaders would inevitably see Bill Clinton as an alternative route toward influencing American policy. And he would be unlikely to remain silent.

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Obama’s disappointing transition

At the moment, I am willing to give President-elect Barack Obama some leeway on his cabinet selections, even going so far as to not criticize the potential that Hillary Clinton could end up as secretary of state.

But the sum total of the names we’ve been seeing have not exactly been reassuring, from a progressive standpoint.

Matt Rothschild, my editor at the Progressive Media Project, offers a somewhat harsher — but deserved — assessment of the Obama transition:

When is Obama going to appoint someone who reflects the progressive base that brought him to the White House?

He won the crucial Iowa caucuses on the strength of his anti-Iraq War stance, and many progressive peace and justice activists worked hard for him against John McCain.

So why in the world is he choosing Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State when she was one of the loudest hawks on Iraq and threatened to obliterate 75 million Iranians?

And it’s not just Hillary.

He has alternatives, he says, including Joseph Stiglitz for Treasury and Russ Feingold for attorney general, but he’s stayed away from the more progressive choices, raising some questions about how much change he really is offering.

There are some excuses — if he wants executive branch experience, he needs to bring in some Clintonites — but the question remains why the plum assignments have to go to the Clinton folks. Admittedly, AG pick Eric Holder was an early supporter, but so wer many others who haven’t defended Chiquita in “a case in which Colombian plaintiffs seek damages for the murders carried out by the AUC paramilitaries – a designated terrorist organization.”

Rothschild’s boldest suggestion — which he says would “honor progressives who backed him early on and then did the grunt work against McCain” — would be to “nominate Dennis Kucinich as Secretary of State.”

That sure would indicate a welcome departure from empire as usual.

But at this point, progressives are getting absolutely nothing from Obama.

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Plugging a new journal


Middlesex County College has issued a new literary journal that features some truly fine work.

In addition to some exquisite poetry (including four by yours truly), Middlesex: A Literary Journal includes essays, a play, black-and-white artwork and reviews by faculty, alumni and friends of the college.

I attended MCC for a year (’85-’86) to get my grades up after two disastrous (academically) years at Penn State and three years working at jobs I knew I could never spend my life doing.

It was a good year that helped me focus my writing and my thinking, giving me a broad and strong base upon which my two years as a successful Rutgers undergraduate and year as a Rutgers graduate student were built.

So it is gratifying to be a part of this journal — and to feature some of the people involved during the monthly reading series I run at the South Brunswick Library. Among the readers were journal editor Emanuel di Pasquale (pictured reading), along with Steven Barnhart, Daniel Zimmerman, Matthew Spano and myself (photo at the top, from left, Hank Kalet, Steven Barnhart, Emanuel di Pasquale, Matthew Spano and Daniel Zimmerman). More readings are likely to be scheduled and there are plans to distribute the journal to libraries around the state — and for a second edition to come out next year.

To get a copy, e-mail Literary_Journal@middlesexcc.edu. I encourage everyone to pick up a copy and/or contribute.

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