If you’re any kind of political junkie you have may have already heard the rumors flying over the last 18 hours or so about the latest news/leak from the Obama Transition Team: that Hillary Clinton could be the next Secretary of State. It’s the top story on CNN.com right now, the most commented-on post on MyDD.com over the last couple of days, getting coverage overseas and is being e-mailed around.
So, when I first read about this on MyDD.com last night (the aforementioned post) I thought “hey, that’d be awesome, but it’s not exactly a done deal, is it?”
Well, it’s still not a done deal of course, but it’s seeming more likely to me. Here’s why:
- It’s not one, but two sources within Obama’s team that are reporting this possibility. Now it’s possible that both of them are getting their information from the same incorrect source, but two sources always lend more weight to a story than one does.
- The CNN.com story has a quote from Hillary today at a transit policy press conference that I read some things into: “I’m very happy there is so much press attention and interest in transit, in the off chance that you’re not here for this important issue and are here for some other reason, let me just say that I’m not going to speculate or address anything about the president-elect’s incoming administration. I’m going to respect his process and any inquiries should be directed to his transition team.” First, notice what’s missing: whereas some of her team last night were saying she was happy as a senator, now she’s not saying she’s going to stay in the senate. She mentions that she’s not going to “speculate“, implying that she doesn’t know anything, which could very well be the case but it could also be the case that she’s not going to “speculate” because she knows exactly what’s going on and doesn’t need to guess about it! Also, the last line caught me: “I’m going to respect his process”. Again, that could be code for “I don’t know what’s going on and I wish you’d all stop bugging me about it…or it could be code for “he’s the president-elect and when he wants to announce me as his new secretary of state he’ll do that and I’m not going to say a word about it.”
Putting aside for a moment the issue of if it would happen and thinking about if it would be a good idea, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, as a strong supporter of her I would love to see her get a spot in the new administration, but somehow the secretary of state role doesn’t totally seem like a good fit for her. I don’t know, maybe I’m not giving her enough credit for being more than a “one-issue” politician, but I would still rather see her working with domestic health care rather than foreign policy since I think her skills would be better suited for that.
On the other hand, I think it would be amazing to replace the second female secretary of state (Condi Rice) with another female secretary and I do think Hillary has what it takes to do the job amazingly well.
Anyway. I should really go do some homework now.
Cheers.
-j