Mike Allen reports that Obama’s tapped Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State. I’m skeptical of the pick, and I think she’d make a better Secretary of Defense. The military loves her, and it would allow Obama to name the first female SecDef.

Hillary is a fighter. She’s cold, calculating, and remorseless — the kind of person you want to represent you if you’re being taken to court. Some say it’s better to have her inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in, which I can appreciate, but let’s not forget that there’s no real Republican opposition right now, which means that as intra-administration conflicts inevitably arise, and the media delights in reporting them, things are liable to get pretty ugly.

Remember Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, renting out the Lincoln Bedroom, selling sensitive satellite and missile technologies to China? Well, Hope and Change just brought those folks back into the cabinet room.

In two months, Rahm Emanuel is going to learn what it’s like to lose control of the message.

When it comes to the war on drugs, here are two awfully good reasons not to be a supply-sider:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The CIA obstructed inquiries into its role in the shooting down of an aircraft carrying a family of U.S. missionaries in Peru in 2001, the agency’s inspector general has concluded.

The inspector-general’s report said a CIA-backed program in Peru targeting drug runners was so poorly run that many suspect aircraft were shot down by Peruvian air force jets without proper checks being made first.

Unclassified portions of the report were made public for the first time on Thursday by U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, who criticized the CIA for the “needless” deaths.

These ludicrous policies got started in Clinton’s second term, when he brought Barry McCaffrey out of retirement to become the new drug czar, and apparently the Bush administration continued them. Unless the plane had been on the outskirts of a major population center, and there was good reason to believe it had weapons of mass destruction on board, there’s simply no excuse for something like this.

A U.S. judge has ordered that five Algerians captured in Bosnia after the September 11th attacks be freed from Guantanamo. My colleague Chris Boucek does groundbreaking work on counterterrorism and detainee issues at Carnegie, and I drew on his expertise in my remarks at last night’s AFF roundtable.

So they say, anyway, at Bild.

…be someplace else.

In related news:

This is the kind of story a reporter would die for:

A MAN caught near Nobbys Beach with his penis in a pasta sauce jar led police on a 20 kmh car chase, Newcastle Local Court heard yesterday.

Police drew their weapons when they suspected Keith Roy Weatherley, 46, was armed.

Instead, they found him partially clothed with his genitals in a jar, a police statement said. . . .

Police believed Weatherley was doing something with his hands in his lap and thought that he might have a weapon. . . .

They found a 750-millilitre jar around his penis and noted that Weatherley attempted to continue “pleasuring himself in between bouts of wrestling”.

A search of his car uncovered pornography, a home-made sex aid, women’s stockings and a Jack Russell terrier.

(Hat tip: JG)

Yes, it’s cute on some level, and my relatives keep telling me the subject looks like a young me, but I suddenly have a newfound appreciation of the pro-communist Arab regimes of the Cold War. After all, what could be more newsworthy than a young Jewish kid eating treif on mommy’s credit card?!

Everyone’s a critic, and apparently it’s never too soon to start.

That’s why David Fishman, an Upper West Sider who turned 12 last month, decided to take himself out for dinner one night last week. His parents had called him at home to say they were running late, suggesting that he grab some takeout at the usual hummus place.

Hummus, again? David thought he could do better than that.

He had recently passed by the newly opened Salumeria Rosi, a few blocks from his home, and had been intrigued by the reflective black back wall, the cuts of dried pork hanging from the ceiling, the little jars of cured olives and artichokes adorning the walls. If it was O.K. with his mom (and it turned out it was), he wanted to try that instead. . . . .

Nobody at the restaurant seemed terribly impressed by Tony Danza, but David Fishman — now that was something. People tried not to stare, but couldn’t help themselves. Where were his parents? Was he enjoying the food? Cash or credit?

Normally passionate for seafood, David ordered a specialty of the restaurant, a prosciutto, as well as what the menu called una insalata di rucola e parmigiano. “Good variety,” he wrote in the leather-bound notebook he brought along, restaurant-critic-like. “Softish jazz music. Seem to enjoy kids but not overly.” In other words, no cloying smiles or insulting offer of grilled cheese.

(Hat tip: JB)

I’ve been wondering whether the whole Hillary for Secretary of State thing might just be a feint — floating her name to pay her back for services rendered — but after speaking to people in the know, I now think there’s a very real possibility she’ll be the pick.

It’s hard to deny that naming Clinton would let an awful lot of air out of the Hope and Change balloon before the new administration even takes office, but I confess, there’s also a good argument for it. As my colleague Tom Carothers points out, Obama is going to face a very thankless first couple years in foreign policy, and it’d be nice for him to be able to step back and say “I’ve put someone serious on it.”

Though there’s inevitably continuity from administration to administration — and there often should be — it’s important to the country for new teams to repudiate their predecessors, at least initially. A large part of the appeal of Obama’s victory lies in the fact that he puts a fresh new face on the country, and allows us to expiate for our national sins without really turning all that much from old our ways.

Hillary seems to me a much more appropriate pick for Secretary of Defense, a job that involves more fist, and less face. But I’d like to see Bob Gates stay on, and I don’t know where else Obama could realistically keep a Republican (or at least a guy who’s served in a Republican administration) in his administration.

I’m having a hard time understanding why Andrew Sullivan still thinks Hillary Clinton should be Secretary of State. CNN has it right, I think, that Bill Clinton’s international business dealings in the past 8 years would compromise her independence.  Obama, you’ll recall, ran on a (now rapidly disintegrating) promise that he wouldn’t have lobbyists in his administration.  Well, Bill Clinton has become just about the biggest lobbyist in the world.  Remember this story?  Henry Kissinger is right that nominating a strong cabinet Secretary shows strength and confidence, but there’s a difference between strength and confidence and utter recklessness.  It might look magnanimous at first, but by bringing Clinton in at State, Obama would open his administration up to constant scandal, and being undermined by the Clintons whenever his foreign policy differed from theirs.  Her positives would wear off soon, and all her negatives would stay.

This man appears to be off his gourd.

John McWhorter had a characteristically thoughtful and serious piece on Obama’s election in Forbes a few days back. Don’t miss it. I’m sorry the Sun won’t be around to carry his column anymore, but it’s good to see Forbes running him, and I hope it’ll be a regular occurrence.

(The piece also contains a hilarious typo that only 3,000 people live in Vermont, as opposed to 3,000 black people, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Over at our front page, Cindy Cerquitella reports from Tbilisi where, when the government isn’t getting reckless with Russia, it’s passing remarkably far-reaching market reforms. Check it out:

TBILISI, GEORGIA–Back in August I could barely tear myself away from my inbox: every few minutes I’d get an update from friends here telling me of new horrors, and fresh attacks by the Russian army. Things were pretty grim that week; I even received a dramatic email from a friend here in the capital saying goodbye; that Russian tanks were heading his way.

Thankfully, only three months later, nearly all that fear and urgency is gone. The city is crowded, vibrant, and bustling, thanks to a roaring economy. Georgia’s economy has grown at an annual rate of 10% over the past two years — even through the Russo-Georgian war — and even now, amid the global downturn, it continues to grow at a respectable 3.5%. The country has enacted a flat tax of 15% on corporate profits, and committed to lowering the personal income tax rate to 15% as well over the next five years. Prime minister Lado Gurgenidze’s administration has also signed legislation which will, over the next three years, abolish taxes on dividends, interest earned, and capital gains. In fact, with no export taxes or barriers, and an import tax of only 0.2%, Georgia may boast the most actively pro-market government in the world.

Tbilisi is beautiful, with rolling green hills, ancient castles, and intricate architecture. Though Russian bombs fell around its outskirts and on its airport over the summer, there was already little evidence of the attacks when I arrived in October. Though small, the airport was modern, well organized and security was at a minimum both coming and going. (Though for some strange reason, most flights arrive and depart at ungodly hours like 3:00 am).

Greg Craig clearly has the qualifications, but you’ve laugh a little at this, no?

President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Washington lawyer Gregory B. Craig, who served as President Bill Clinton’s lead attorney during the 1998 impeachment proceedings, to be his White House counsel, according to an individual involved with the transition. . . .

Craig was a foreign policy adviser to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. He has defended high-profile clients, including John Hinckley Jr., who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, and Kennedy nephew William Kennedy Smith, who was accused of rape.

(Full disclosure: Craig is a trustee at Carnegie.)

As long as rockers have to age, at least they can be self-deprecating about it. This is great:

Go here, and scroll back and look at older posts. I’m hooked. I am powerless before it.

I don’t know how I missed this the other day, but it may be the definitive painfully postmodern New York Times story: Fox News makes Sarah Palin looks like an idiot; the New York Times makes the Fox News team look like a bunch of idiots; and The New Republic and Los Angeles Times look like a bunch of idiots compared to the New York Times, because not everyone can be as smart — or as satisfied with themselves right now — as the folks at the Gray Lady:

It was among the juicier post-election recriminations: Fox News Channel quoted an unnamed McCain campaign figure as saying that Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.

Who would say such a thing? On Monday the answer popped up on a blog and popped out of the mouth of David Shuster, an MSNBC anchor. “Turns out it was Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, who has come forward today to identify himself as the source of the leaks,” Mr. Shuster said.

Trouble is, Martin Eisenstadt doesn’t exist. His blog does, but it’s a put-on. The think tank where he is a senior fellow — the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy — is just a Web site. The TV clips of him on YouTube are fakes.

And the claim of credit for the Africa anecdote is just the latest ruse by Eisenstadt, who turns out to be a very elaborate hoax that has been going on for months. MSNBC, which quickly corrected the mistake, has plenty of company in being taken in by an Eisenstadt hoax, including The New Republic and The Los Angeles Times.

Emily Parker profiles famed corporate raider and greenmailer Carl Icahn in the WSJ.

I don’t know about Icahn’s latest shareholder initiative, but if the Pickens Plan is any indication of big investor altruism, buyer beware. This guy’s a lion, and something tells me he’s only gonna practice vegetarianism until his hangers-on have all fattened up.

Polansky the Younger has a nice one up on the front page today. Here’s a taste:

Of course, suggesting that the neocons will somehow manage to pervert our descendants’ understanding of the present is pointless, insofar as the consensus of our children’s children is unlikely to be right in the first place. Most people are poorly enough informed of contemporary events, and they show an even weaker grasp of the past. Can the average American today explain the origins or ultimate effects of World War I? And in many ways it is easier for jingoism and arrogance to seep into our perceptions of our ancestors’ activities than it is our own. Our attitude is more or less “nothing to be done about it now, might as well mythologize it.” Better to think the Doughboys died for something grander than Wilsonian self-deception and the Treaty of Versailles.

Really, this entire mode of argument is little more than self-aggrandizement at the expense of our forebears — “poor Grandpa, he didn’t understand how good a leader Truman was.” (And as far as this George W. Bush is Harry S. Truman thing goes, James Buchanan also left office loathed by the populace he purported to serve, and history remembers him an abject failure.) Maybe the Greatest Generation was a little more on the ball than we realize. Truman wasn’t loathed because he dropped a pair of atomic bombs on civilian population centers, but because he entangled us in a foreign war without clearly defining attainable objectives or appropriate strategies. (Actually there might be something to that Truman analogy after all.)

We fixate on Truman’s decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki while glossing over the Korean conflict because we’d prefer to memorialize our history as one of just and terrible avengers rather than semi-competent invaders of Asian countries of questionable strategic significance. Our grandchildren may wish to remember our generation in a similar light, but the apologue they create won’t qualify as objective assessment of history any more than ours does. Human judgment is fallible, and there’s no reason to think another 50 or 100 years will change that.

Yep, Comedy = Tragedy + Time, except in this case. Read the whole thing.

This Wizard of Id cartoon is worth a thousand words about Obama’s domestic policy.

It’s these sorts of things that make you wonder what the situation in South Asia would look like if we hadn’t squandered so many opportunities for cooperation since September 11th:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Gunmen abducted an Iranian diplomat in Peshawar on Thursday, a day after a U.S. aid worker was shot dead in the city on the front line of an Islamist insurgency sweeping northwest Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan.

Suspicion for the kidnapping will inevitably fall on the Taliban and affiliated Sunni Muslim militant groups such as al Qaeda, who hate Shi’ite Muslims and predominantly Shi’ite Iran almost as much as they hate the West. . . . .

The Iranian Foreign Ministry confirmed that its Peshawar consulate’s commercial attache Heshmatollah Attarzadeh Niyaki had been kidnapped. A policeman assigned to guard him was shot and killed trying to resist the assailants, police said.