Yes Please… Clinton for Secretary of State!
Hillary for Secretary of State? Yes, please!
From Jake Tapper at Political Punch:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton?
November 14, 2008 12:58 PMThere’s a lot of buzz in DC about the fact that the Obama Transition Team is, according to one knowledgeable source, "very serious" about Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, being under consideration for Secretary of State.
ABC News can confirm that President-elect Barack Obama met with Clinton on Thursday afternoon at Obama’s downtown office in Chicago. The AP first broke the news and reported that the motorcade of Clinton, who receives Secret Service protection as a former first lady, was seen leaving the office complex shortly before Obama left for the day.
George Stephanopoulos reported Clinton’s name being in the mix last week on Good Morning America, but the buzz grew louder after Clinton was spotted boarding a flight to Chicago.
Her spokesman Philippe Reines would not discuss Clinton’s schedule, and of course the Obama Transition Team would not comment.
The thinking about a Secretary of State Clinton is simple, I’m told: she’s smart, she’s strong, she’s experienced, she’s a team player, she is usually pretty diplomatic, and she also brings some gender diversity to an Obama Team concerned about such matters.
She brings instant stature to the job, one Democrat told me. Many world leaders have known her for almost two decades.
"Clinton is the gold standard around the world, " said Chris Lehane, a former spokesman for Vice President Al Gore.
[...]
And of course, she and Obama famously and repeatedly clashed over international issues during their contentious primaries. She assailed as "naive" his willingness to speak to the leaders of hostile regimes without preconditions and she assailed as reckless his public discussions about his willingness to attack high-value terrorist targets in Pakistan with or without Pakistan government permission.
Obama "basically threatened to bomb Pakistan, which I don’t think was a particularly wise position to take," Clinton said at the Democratic debate in Cleveland, Ohio, on February 26.
[...]
In Boca Raton in May, Obama — asked by a vote if he would consider putting Clinton on the ticket — said, "I’m a practical-minded guy. And, you know, one of my heroes is Abraham Lincoln. And a while back there was a wonderful book written by Doris Kearns Goodwin called ‘Team of Rivals.’"
The book, Obama said, discussed how "Lincoln basically pulled in all the people who had been running against him into his Cabinet because whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was how can we get this country through this time of crisis. And I think that has to be the approach that one takes, whether it’s vice president or Cabinet, whoever."
– Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller
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