Excerpts from an editorial in The Times yesterday:
There are two main reasons for Barack Obama to reach out to those with whom he competed for power: To neutralize political rancor and to ensure that the biggest jobs go to the best people. Obama must do both, not least because his first confirmed appointments smack less of change than of a ritual return to the 1990s.
Appointment of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state would dismay thousands of volunteers and hundreds of staffers who fought specifically to exclude her in Obama’s favor as the Democratic presidential nominee. It would drag Bill Clinton’s complex foreign entanglements into an unforgiving spotlight and his world view, solicited or not, into US foreign policymaking. Even so, Mrs. Clinton would be the right choice.
In this case qualifications trump the taint of dynastic politics. Mrs. Clinton’s knowledge of the world is as formidable as her stamina. She knows her own mind and is not afraid to speak it. If this presaged constant argument with Obama it would be an argument against her, but it does not: To be effective, secretaries of state must speak for the president, and the last thing Mrs. Clinton wants is to be ineffective. Obama has not shown the news-management skill in his courting of Mrs. Clinton that he showed on the campaign trail. But he has shown that he wants serious advice for the serious task of redefining America abroad. Lincoln would approve.
