For what it's worth -- and the answer to that is very little -- I'm not taking the rumors that Hillary Clinton is being considered for Secretary of State particularly seriously. Obama's main argument against Hillary Clinton in the primaries was that she was wed to a Washington establishment of cautious and stale foreign policy thinkers who'd helped her blunder into, among other things, supporting the war in Iraq. Elevating her to the country's top foreign policy job would be an odd resolution to that argument. So why the leaks? Well, it's important for the Obama team to be seen as seriously considering Clinton for something. But there's not much at sufficient scale. The vice presidency is taken. Health and Human Services, which would fit Clinton's best issue, would be an insulting offer. Treasury is understood to be a position for experts, not politicians. So State is all that's left. It's the biggest prize in the administration. But it makes no sense to put Hillary at State -- Obama's campaign was predicated on the idea that her foreign policy judgment proved pretty bad. And so she won't get it. But respect necessitates that Obama leaks her as a contender for it. Indeed, if she were going to get it, my hunch is there would be no leaks. The fact that she's being publicly considered is probably pretty good evidence that she's been privately ruled out. Provocative Related Thought: A lot of people whom I trust on this say that Hillary Clinton would make a genuinely good Secretary of Defense. Her performance on the Armed Services Committee has, by all accounts, been extremely impressive, and her understanding of military affairs is surprisingly deep. That's not to say she'd want the gig.
