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[Update] Hillary to Take SoS * David Ignatius, That A–h-le Pretentious Snob, Has Me So Furious I Could Throttle Him

By Lena Grove aka nasuS on November 21, 2008 at 4:08 PM in Current Affairs, Media Handling of Story, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

UPDATE: This is not an NBC conspiracy against Hillary. Here are more news and blog sites reporting much the same story:

Fox News is also reporting this now. Here’s one of many videos, this an early Today show video of Andrea Mitchell’s reports all day at MSNBC on the coming announcement:

David Ignatius’s column in today’s WaPo, “The Case Against Hillary“:

[...]

[T]he idea of subcontracting foreign policy to Clinton — a big, hungry, needy ego surrounded by a team that’s hungrier and needier still — strikes me as a mistake of potentially enormous proportions. It would, at a stroke, undercut much of the advantage Obama brings to foreign policy. And because Clinton is such a high-visibility figure, it would make almost impossible (at least through the State Department) the kind of quiet diplomacy that will be needed to explore options. …

OKAY! You are going to need a STRESS RELIEVER after reading that! So, below, I’ve provided you with a fun task! What ever shall we do with Bill Richardson ?!?!?!?!? Heh.

The Richardson “problem” is below. First, here’s more Ignatius:

[...] The foreign policy landscape already has too many big elephants wandering out from the Senate, with Sen. Joe Biden becoming vice president and former presidential candidate John Kerry taking over as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. With this many big talkers on the loose, it’s terrifying to imagine what life will be like in a few months for the booker on “Meet the Press.”

And I haven’t even mentioned here the biggest elephant of all, former President William Jefferson Clinton. I am a big fan of the ex-prez; he’s one of the wisest and most effective thinkers on foreign policy that I know. But it’s even harder to imagine him fitting in as the spouse of the secretary of state than as spouse of the president or vice president. I’ll leave to the transition’s team legal vetters the question of Bill Clinton’s potential conflicts of interest, after having been a “buckraker” speaker and door opener for wealthy business and political leaders around the world. But those leaders would surround almost everything Hillary Clinton tried to do in Foggy Bottom.

The most effective secretary of state I’ve covered in 30 years of writing about foreign policy was George Shultz. He was also the most apolitical. The least effective I can remember was Sen. Ed Muskie, another failed presidential candidate. Someone in Jimmy Carter’s entourage must have had a “team of rivals” idea when they named Muskie to succeed Cyrus Vance. But it was a bad idea then. And I’m sorry to say, it’s a bad idea now.

Blah blah blah.

Now, Al Kamen writes for today’s WaPo, “If Clinton’s the Pick, Where Does That Leave Richardson?“:

[...]

As for Richardson, Murguia suggested he could serve as secretary of commerce or the interior. “Perhaps there’s an ambassador role to China,” she added.

What ELSE could we do with Bill? Here are some thoughts of mine:

  • The next mayor of Wasilla, Alaska
  • Sarah’s envoy to Russia
  • Chief negotiator between the Mexican drug cartel and the Mexican police
  • Ambassador to the Galapagos Islands
  • Personal deliveryman of booze to Kim Jong-il