The New York Times reports that Hillary Clinton means to "expand" the role of the State Department, imbuing the agency with "a bigger budget, high-profile special envoys to trouble spots and an expanded role in dealing with global economic issues at a time of crisis." The key to all that is enhancing the budget, which is why she's appointing Jacob Lew, a longtime budget guy who headed the OMB under Clinton, her deputy. As a general point, giving State a few billion more to work with is a much better idea than giving the military 90,000 more troops, as Obama promised to do and as a recent editorial in the Times demanded. The mpre troops we have, the easier it is for armchair pundits to theorize about the great wars we can win. Conversely, the more diplomats we have, the more diplomacy we can actually engage in.
