they savaged gore and kerry, and have continuesly assaulted sen. clinton, since pres. clinton first announced he was going to run for the office.

maureen dowd, a seriously emotionally disturbed individual, has been one of the main leaders of this pack, creating lies out of thin air, and presenting her delusional fantasies as fact.

one could almost credit the clintons with being single-handedly responsible for the rise of right-wing talk radio; what the heck would rush, et al, have to talk about, without them?

and yet, in spite of all this, to the nearly hysterical consternation of the "liberal" media, the clintons survive and thrive.

George Bush spent eight years campaigning rather than governing.  A lot of people don't even know that governing is more important and lasting than any campaign slogan.

Obama is more and more striking me as a pragmatist.  I was going to write a thing about the Rise of the Age of Pragmatism a few days ago.  There wasn't much more to say than that there seems to be a rise and I didn't think a big portion of the audience would get it so I didn't bother.  But that's what I see in the appointments Obama is making.  

One of the big pluses in Senator Clinton's column for me during the primary was the fact that she knows what government used to look like before the Bush era.  Gore had worked very hard on a little known project called the Alliance for Redesigning Government.  Gore and his task force created the most efficient, leanest and most effective government we had had in decades.  A big reason that I had hoped he would run too.

In any case, there is a lot of rebuilding that will need to be done.  It is my hope that with a brain trust that knows what government used to be like before it became an arm of the RNC political wing Obama will be able to infuse new ideas whilst getting some of the oldies but goodies back into place.

I am glad to see this team be pragmatic.  I think the Clinton pick shows that Obama has made a realistic assessment of the work load on both the domestic and international fronts.  I don't think Kerry or Richardson would have the gravitas and be accepted as a surrogate for Obama internationally in the way Clinton will be.  I'm guessing they understand that Obama can't be globe trotting while the economy is collapsing.  I think it makes sense and I'm not all that worried about her or Bill going off the ranch.

If he is acting different now is because he now knows how wrong he was about the Clintons.  

I remember right after he got nominated in an interviews he stated that he desperately needed the Clintons to win the GE.

So far most of his appointments are past Clinton people and now Hilary herself.

I think Obama's goal in choosing Hillary was survival in the 2012 election. When the economy is still in the tankers then (which it will likely be), he'll actually need the however-many-Hillary-voters that stayed home last time.

To imply that somehow this is charitable, or genius or that he didn't have to do it or something? Well, I think it's a stretch to say so.

Obama never told the media or his fanatic bloggers, Kos,Josh, Klein etc., to stop CDS and never will. The reality is that Bill Clinton was so good that his people at the different positions are the best and brightest. The gang assembled around Obama are the Clinton refuse can (Daschle); you don't make a government with them and hope to succeed.

The problem with Hillary is more basic, as well as undeniable: on foreign policy she is a hawk (a euphemism for "conservative.") Nominating her would undermine Obama's core message of change and send exactly the wrong message to the world. I don't believe Obama will give her the post. He shouldn't. SOS, indeed.

wouldn't it be nice to think that Obama, who is now our President-elect, during these most trying and crucial times, could have the maturity to recognize the extraordinary abilities and intelligence of Hillary Clinton...enough to be honored to have her on his team...

...obviously I am a Hillary supporter, however I was encouraged to hear Obama say that NEEDS her counsel and respects that she is one of the most thoughtful thinkers in the country...I am heartened to think that Obama recognizes what so much of the world sees in the Clintons and has enough confidence to want to project their goodwill instead of being small and being threatened by it...

What about exposing some serious obstacles in Obama's ability to govern and actually change policies in Washington? For example Daniel Froomkin's blog asserting,

"So the question we ask ourselves today is: Are Bush and Cheney loyalists entrenching themselves into the federal bureaucracy in order to make it difficult for their successors to roll back their policies?"

and:

Occam's razor tells me that somebody who repeatedly accuses good Democrats with lifelong anti-discrimination and Civil Rights records, and numerous of their supporters and associates to boot, of racism and race-baiting-- Occam's razor tells me that person is trying to utterly destroy them as political forces within the party.

And then there are the folks like me who decided to support Obama last winter and got sick to death of hearing him called an empty suit, and hearing ourselves called Koolaid drinkers and cultists.

Whitewater may have been an early example, but the same process worked with Wen Ho Lee (the irony being that it was the Clinton Administration that began the heartless persecution of Wen Ho Lee), Judy Miller and WMD.  In the spring of 2004 William Greider wrote a piece for the Nation about how he sarcastically congratulated some of campaign press on their having successfully torpedoed Howard Dean's campaign.  Greider was shocked when these people Greider knew personally acknowledged his congratulations.  They were proud of what they'd done.

Obama owed Hillary and Bill Clinton.  Both of them, but especially Hillary, were real pros and did yeoman service campaigning for Obama in key swing states.  Obama is certainly justified in appointing Hillary Secretary of State if that's what she wants.  She's certainly as qualified as Madelyn Albright or Warren Christopher were.

My fear is that the courtier media won't get over it, but will manufacture more "scandal" out of Bill Clinton's post-presidential career.

It speaks highly of Obama as a political operator that he honors his political debt to the Clintons and refuses to let the MoDos of the press exert a heckler's veto.  This lets the world know that Obama will not sell someone out if they work for him.  

Over as DKOS, which was filled with anti-Hillary fervor during the primary, not frontpagers have objected.