11/30/08:
NYT reported that Obama would announce Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and Susan Rice as UN Ambassador.  BUT – “To reinforce his intention to work more closely with the United Nations after the tensions of President Bush’s tenu…

There is no way that the UN Ambassador should be a Cabinet level job. It should be correctly placed under State.

schmuck281 on December 9, 2008 at 4:03 PM

The above easily wins the contest as the most intelligent comment on this topic.

Obama has shown a certain executive inexperience by racking up the balls the way he has. It was his attempt to show the UN and its supporters that they had his ear, and its failure was predictable from the moment of its announcement. There cannot be two foreign policies without bad things resulting for the country pursuing such misguided diplomacy.

rplat on December 9, 2008

Pay no attention to the man behind the black face. Just concentrate on the black face that you elected to absolve you of your white guilt. Now, don’t you feel better?
(indignant cries of “racism” in 4,3,2…)

Obama made a big mistake, and he will have to rectify it quickly. Otherwise, the resulting feud will reflect badly on the competence of the least-experienced President in at least 100 years.

Good. GOOOD!!!!!

/The Emperor

Hillary, you go, girl! You gotta keep the troops in line.

Big error by Obama.

MirCat on December 9, 2008 at 5:14 PM

Or Dr. Dre/Snoop Dogg (what PEBO is REALLY thinking)

(Content Warning)

- The Cat

P.S. Or Earl Scruggs and Steve Martin and . . etc etc

[munches popcorn]

There is no way that the UN Ambassador should be a Cabinet level job. It should be correctly placed under State.

Nor should the “Auto Czar” or any of the bailout managers be a Cabinet appointment. They should be under Commerce because that is where all the correct type of expertise is located.

Making them Cabinet positons is only grandstanding. Obama seems to have a gift for that. But when everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.

That’s something that has bitten past President’s hard. The best was Eisenhower. He know how to use his staff. When to kick them, when to stroke them and at the same time play the old duffer wandering around the golf course.

Kennedy,Johnson,Clinton. All micromanagers. Nothing happened in their administrations witout their finger being in the soup.

Obama looks to be the classice micromanager. A finger in everything but controlling nothing. Especially when he comes to loggerheads with the Premanent Bureaucracy. which all President’s do.

My bet: Rice stays, Hillary goes.
MrScribbler on December 9, 2008 at 3:19 PM

Interesting possibility but being a degenerate gambler, I will take that bet.

Rice is no threat to Obama. Hillary is. Rice did not get 17,000,000 votes this year in national elections. Hillary did. Obama did not pick Hillary because of her masterful diplomatic skills. Her foreign policy experience is limited to claiming to having been shot at once.

No, he picked her to put her on ice. The last thing he needs is for her to tell him to take his job and shove it. She could still back out of this gig and not lose face. On the contrary, if she puts out the right grumbles her PUMAS and many of those who see Obama as a continuation of Bush would be inclined to have another look at her.

There are no such issues with Rice. She is just another misguided liberal black feminist one-worlder that Obama can push aside with little negative reaction. He may lose the liberal black feminist one-worlder vote in 2012 but he can deal with that.

It shouldn’t come to that, though. Hillary will scream at someone and Rahm will tell Rice to setup shop in the UN and stay away from foggy bottom. But, if push does come to shove, Rice will be gone faster than you can say, “Obama was born in Kenya.”