Wednesday, November 26, 2008

It's 2008. You can stop drinking the Clinton kool-aid now.

"The Washington Post" recently published an op-ed arguing that Bill Clinton should be appointed to fill Hillary Clinton's senate seat if she becomes the new Secretary of State. The reason for this opinion is that Bill Clinton as a senator would be the coolest thing ever (embedded hyperlinks in original):
Doing so would spare the governor the agonizing dilemma of choosing from the 20 or so Democrats already named as contenders for the junior senator's seat. Those mentioned include six sitting members of the House of Representatives (three of each sex), Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Caroline Kennedy and her cousin Robert Kennedy Jr., Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown (an African American), and Bronx Borough President Adolfo CarriĆ³n Jr. (who is Hispanic). In this no-win competition, Paterson has to balance claims of gender, race, ethnicity and geography. He could wind up gaining one grateful ally while alienating not only all the losers but also millions of members of the disparate constituencies that each represents.

Hence the appeal of Bill Clinton. Who in his party could question so historic and dazzling a choice? In a stroke, the appointment would provide Sen. Clinton's indefatigable husband with a fitting day job, serve the interests of a state beset by a meltdown in its most vital economic sector and offer a refreshing reverse twist on a tradition whereby deceased male senators, representatives or governors are succeeded by their widows.
Anybody who can still think that giving the Clintons more power is "refreshing" obviously has kool-aid coming out of their ears and nose by now, although the argument that appointing Clinton to the post will keep the high-level idiots in the New York State government from fighting to the death does have a certain charm to it.

As anyone evenly faintly familiar with the Clinton's knows, the level of irrational enthusiasm that the authors of the op-ed are exhibiting can only mean that the article is a "trial balloon". The conspiracy theoretical interpretation is simple. Putting Bill Clinton into the Senate would give Hillary Clinton an ubshakable legislative ally for her time in the State Department. Perhaps more importantly, it would give Bill and Hillary a New York / DC alliance to contend with Obama's Illinois / Massachusetts alliance in 2012. A Senator Bill Clinton would presumably be able to swing a large chunk of the nation's mainstream media back into a Clintonian orbit in 2012.

The suspicion is that this is a blatant political "power play" to give Hillary Clinton a "shadow government" in preparation for 2012. The proposal, as abominable as it is, thus has a silver lining to it: any proposal that potentially allows me to experience Schadenfreude at Obama's expense can't be all bad.

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