Why Hillary Clinton shouldn’t be Obama’s Secretary of State

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.