Obama's trying to recreate some of the excitement of Kennedy's Camelot but that's an impossible task in the computer age. In spite of the Kool-Aid message of change, Democrats are even more cynical than conservatives. The list of names being considered for Secretary of State includes Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Bill Richardson, and even Chuck Hagel.
Let me tell you right now--Hagel's a smokescreen intended to roil the waters and convince people of Obama's egalitarianism. He's talking to McCain for the same reason--to convey the image of a guy capable of working across long standing political and philosophical boundaries.
Bill Richardson is the bagman buffoon who defected from the Clinton campaign to support Obama. He carries baggage, too. While Bill Clinton's Energy Secretary, he persecuted the largely innocent nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee and was at the center of a national espionage scandal. He once boasted he was drafted into pro baseball, a claim that turned out to be untrue. His chief value to Obama was in drawing off some of the Hispanic vote but he looks and acts too much like John Belushi for people to take him seriously as Secretary of State. If paying off the Spanish vote is Obama's game, I'd suggest Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer. That guy would be a million times better than Richardson, and he might have better luck as "pack leader" to world despots.
John Kerry has "gravitas" in spades but too many Huffington Post liberals find him ultimately boring as the Senate's Ted Kennedy Clone.
No,Hillary is the brightest light that Obama can summon to the job and you have to think that the job is hers if she wants it. Personally, I hope she has declined to express an interest in the position because I think her strengths lie elsewhere. Obama may be a one-term president and, as Obama Secretary of State, she'd be out of the running in "12" by accepting the job.
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