The not-quite-South-by-the-way-of-Illinois-by-the-way-of-New York HAS RISEN AGAIN! She told you she'd be back! Like the Terminator. Only this time she's working for the O-Team. And since the saga over her possible appointment has been going on and on for more than two weeks now no one is surprised.
Every day President-Elect Barack Obama's potential cabinet keeps looking one-part "Team of Rivals" and one-part "Justice League." Could the names be any bigger? Could the egos surpass that girth? All I want to know is who is Batman and who is Superman and is Batman carrying his emergency kryptonite to keep Superman in check? Inquiring nerds want to know!
My thoughts on Clinton for Secy. of State? I'm ambivalent and bemused and fascinated. I want to see this play out. While it's obvious that Sen. Clinton really, really, really wanted to be sworn in herself come Jan. 20th, I don't think this is necessarily part of some Machiavellian plot to destroy the Obama Administration from within. By hitching her wagon to the Great Hopemongerer, she's now completed her transformation as "ride or die" Obama. As in, if Obama fails in his foreign policy she will feel that same stiff, cold wind that occassionally blows at the backs of Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell for their roles in the many fiascos of the Bush Administration as Secys. of State. This is make or break time.
As in, she needs to make this work for the good of the country and her own reputation.
In the end, as a politician (or as anything for that matter) all you have is your name. Once that goes, you go and there's no amount of wishful thinking (see, Bush, George W.) that will make a giant turd of a presidency blossom into wildflowers.
Clinton has chosen not to play passive in this and I'm not surprised. This is the first Democratic administration since her husband's and it's so damn historic presidential historians are having preemptive orgasms anticipating every ounce of minutae they will collect and preserve for prosperity. I half expect Doris Kearns Goodwin to pass out from a case of the vapors.
The only thing that's sticking in my craw is my beloved blowhard of MSNBC, Chris Matthews, who's foot-n-mouth disease knows no bounds. Last week I had to endour the most moronic conversation on Hardball where he (and strangely enough, other pundits who should have known better) batted around the notion of Bill Clinton running for Hillary's senate seat.
Bill Clinton. William Jefferson Clinton. Former president of the United States. Former "Leader of the Free World." Former Commander-In-Chief. Former HNIC and it's all about me, me, me where they played "Hail to the Chief" when he entered a room and everywhere he went was like TV's "Cheers" -- everywhere he went everyone knew his name. Bill "I'm a Rhodes Scholar with no impulse control who could not stop chasing tail because Prince's 'Pussy Control' was about me, man. The pussy is in CHARGE! I just follow the smell wherever it leads me. Don't tell Hillary! But it doesn't matter because I beat every mutha fucker who tried to impeach me! I am untouchable, the slickest of the slick and my dick is bigger than Gods!" Clinton.
That Clinton to run to be a junior senator from New York.
Seriously.
Bill will give up his charity for his wife's potential appointment, but after being president being senator is being Pope and choosing to go back to being a postulate and Bill is no longer the student. He is the teacher, you philistines! And the ego's on fire -- the Comeback Id would rather kick it with his Billionaire Boys Club wingman Ron Burkle for the next four to eight years, picking up chicks in Prague. Debating things like who would beat who in a fight -- Sam Jackson as Mace Windu from Star Wars versus Sam Jackson as the Octopus in The Spirit? Ruminating on all the girl's he's loved before.
I always saw Bill as being Henry Hill from "Goodfellas," the real life gangster who moved up within a crime family but was brought down by his own excesses. When the party was over he griped that he had to live like a regular "schnook."
Senator Bill Clinton ain't happening because Big Willie ain't gonna be nobody's schnook. He's not about to return to Washington, DC only to be Sens. Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer's bitch. He'd rather kill himself. Or them. Hell, that's probably one of the reasons why Hillary bounced from the senate anyway. Ted Kennedy was cock blocking her on health care reform because it was his baby first. So the Clintons like to win and Hillary's decided to take her toys and go join the winning team.
Unfortunately, there will be drama, real and imagined. I put a big emphasis on "imagined." The main accusation and criticism of the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, is that their ambition is wild, ever reaching and starkly naked. While it is true, they know how to play the game better than most and can manipulate the press with the best of them -- all politicians are flagrantly and brazenly ambitious.
Barack Obama's ambitious. He's just a master of his own domain. He has slayed his dragons. He is in control of whatever demons he may possess, or perhaps he vanquished those demons long ago. He is not a man starved for sex, affection and approval and he is not a woman married to that mess, dealing with her own self-doubts and calculations.
He's in "control." If there were ever a salacious, unhinged, kinky scandal surrounding the O-Man I would be the first one calling "bullshit," only to be followed by shock and horror. But if Bill Clinton gets caught playing "grab hands" with Kim Kardashian tomorrow I'm not going to feign indignation.
Barack is in control and he's in control of this selection of Hillary Clinton.
She knows the drill. He's her boss. The Secy. of State's job is the execute the president's vision. Yes, she can offer insight, but as Colin Powell will tell you, even if you think the president is really taking an "L" there, you have to either get on board or resign.
Very few resign.
And if for some reason she doesn't know the drill and the media circus, Matthews, et al, becomes too much it will be up to Obama to say he's had enough of life under the big top.
Either way. I really don't think folks should spend too much time worrying about it. Obama's got this.
