Team of giants

In what may be one of the most brilliant political moves ever, President-elect Barack Obama has just nominated Hillary Rodham Clinton for Secretary of State in his administration.

It might not surprise those who've been here before that I’ve been a long time coming to this conclusion, given the givens, as we say. But bear with me, here.

In the beginning — that is to say, when the possibility first was raised — the idea seemed absolutely daft. After all, Hillary (her campaign name of choice) had fought fiercely (an understatement, actually) to capture the nomination for President, and once the others had dropped out she and her husband strove with every Clinton fiber to defeat Obama as a rival.

It wasn’t pretty.

Around the time of South Carolina I came to wish for the end of the Clintons, politically, with every fiber of my own being.

And when Obama won the nomination I still worried that the Clintons might have some ace-in-the-hole to play to wrest it away from him. When that didn’t happen, I joined the celebration — but still wondered what they might be up to. After all, when you’re talking about the Clintons, you just can’t help wondering.

There was a bit of cat-and-mouse with Bill during the general campaign but, by golly, in the end they said and did all the right things and Barack Obama was elected President of the United States.

So now we have Hillary Clinton with us again. Secretary of State? You’ve got to be kidding! In the immortal words of more than one pundit reacting to the news, “She just never goes away, does she?”

The arguments against such insanity are legion: She voted for the Iraq war resolution whereas Obama opposed it; she called him “naïve” for proposing to talk to our enemies; she is calculating; she hopes to see him fail so she can run for President; she would build up a parallel power structure that would undercut him; she brings Bill.

For all of these reasons, plus just plain fury, I have been opposed to the very idea of bringing Hillary into the administration, especially at such a high level.

But then, like a good citizen, I began listening to other voices, and here’s what I heard: Remaining in the Senate, Hillary would truly have a power base that could challenge Obama’s agenda, whereas as a member of the Cabinet she would be completely disarmed; the President sets the policy, and his appointees carry it out — and serve at his pleasure; you want to keep your friends close and your enemies closer; love ‘em or hate ‘em, the Clintons have great credibility and admiration around the rest of the world and that will be an asset. And here’s one I particularly like: No way Hillary will be anywhere near health care reform!

Beyond the obvious positives, Barack Obama has shown, with this bold appointment, that he is not daunted by his foes and that he intends to be in charge, a good beginning for a President. He has made a selection that will quell any remaining resistance by the Hillary holdouts while comforting some of the hawks about the Iraq war, though I think this latter issue will soon become moot.

Interestingly, the rollout of Obama’s first national security appointments made it clear that it’s a team of giants, with Robert Gates to continue as Secretary of Defense, Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, General James L. Jones as National Security Adviser, Eric Holder as Attorney General, Susan Rice as Ambassador to the United Nations, and Janet Napolitano as head of Homeland Security. Hillary Clinton is just one of the team.

In the final analysis it comes down to this: Barack Obama will be the President of the United States, a fact that has already got the world abuzz. Around the globe, the chatter is in amaze mode: America has elected an African-American to be its President! They really mean what they say!

(The most visible spokesman for Al-Qaeda, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, didn’t know what to make of it, trying weakly to foment trouble by suggesting that Obama is only a “house negro,”which shows how clueless he is.)

A Saudi journalist, Samir Saadi, summed it up: “Given Obama’s name, his background, the doubts about his religion, Americans still voted for him and this proved that America is a democracy. . . . People here are starting to believe in the U.S. again.”

Saadi’s conclusion? “The U.S. has won the war on terror.”