On the down side, Hillary would be taking over a big and demoralized government bureaucracy, after proving with her campaign that she does not know how to run a big and demoralized group of people.
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"Why should the woman who made 18 million cracks go back to being junior to Chuck Schumer, if she could be toasted from Dublin to Dubai?"
Writes Maureen Dowd:
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Let's keep in mind that some of those supposed "18 million cracks" were actually:
(1) racists who simply didn't want to vote for a black person, or
(2) Republicans who were trying to help get a Republican elected president by either preventing the Democrats from nominating their best candidate or at least slowing down the nomination process.
She's a natural for the Arabist State Department. Plus, those pantsuits will scare the world into submission.
Right, everyone who didn't vote for Mr. Marxist-Racist-Thug was racist. You betcha.
iS Dowd acknowledging the State Dept is full of uncooperative liberals ?
jac,
I respectfully disagree. You sound a little too cynical on this one.
I would never vote for Hillary, but I believe she would be effective as SOS in an Obama Admin.
The main potential drawback - I could be wrong on this - is that it's difficult to imagine Secretary of State Hillary not wanting to have a say in the National Security Apparatus as well. If she's just off doing meet and greet s while policy is left to a Biden-centered Nat Sec office, I don't see that sitting well with Hillary or Bill at all.
Secretary of State is traditionally a woman's job.
I would have voted for Condoleezza Rice before either Obama or Hilary.
Does that make me racist or sexist?
Why would Hillary Clinton want to be Cyrus Vance for four years when she can be a Senator from the second biggest state for the next 15 years?
John Althouse Cohen said...1) racists who simply didn't want to vote for a black person
Hillary would be President elect right now if millions of racist? black folks had not voted for the black candidate because of his race.
Let's keep in mind that some of those supposed "18 million cracks" were actually:
(1) racists who simply didn't want to vote for a black person, or
(2) Republicans who were trying to help get a Republican elected president by either preventing the Democrats from nominating their best candidate or at least slowing down the nomination process.
7:43 AM
Jac,
I certainly hope that you didn't mean to say what it appears that you said here.
If so, and your views are reflective of your apparent candidate of choice, women in positions of leadership in the Obama administration are going to be an endagered species.
For the record ....
There are people who ACTUALLY voted FOR Hillary Clinton because she was, by far, the more qualified candidate than Obama.
Women can be more qualified for something than a man.
A: Because it is a political move on the part of Obama to take Hillary off the table for 2012. Good move, but by taking the job, Clinton essentially puts a spike in her hope to ever be president.
People refer to "junior" senator as though that really matters. A senator is a senator and their place in the pecking order comes from their personal power, not some silly title of junior or senior.
(1) racists who simply didn't want to vote for a black person, or
How many people voted for Obama because they didn't want to vote for a woman.
Remember, a black man has been elected. A woman never has.
Does anyone else get the vibe from Obama that he doesn't really like or respect women?
Or is it that he just doesn't really like or respect anyone except himself?
Remember, a black man has been elected. A woman never has.
I thought lawyers were supposed to be masters of language. Let's be honest and accurate:
"Remember a mulatto man has been elected." Or in PC vernacular, "...a Halfrican-American" man has been elected."
MayBee said...Remember, a black man has been elected. A woman never has.
Give it 4 more years.
Some things Obama has in common with his predecessors -
He's male.
He was born of a White woman.
He was raised by a White family.
He was privileged enough to attend elite schools.
He is the descendant of slave owners.
He was supported by wealthy powerful White people.
Palladian said...Does anyone else get the vibe from Obama that he doesn't really like or respect women?
He's angry at mommy.
And he did marry a woman who looks like a tall, black tranny.
Palladian said...
"Does anyone else get the vibe from Obama that he doesn't really like or respect women?"
A friend of mine thinks so. My inclination is to agree with her. Still, Obama won't prove that thesis by not appointing her. I can't understand for the life of me why Hillary would want the job, even if it was offered in good faith, I can't imagine her being dumb enough to walk into the trap by thinking it was offered in good faith, and all that aside, she may well be constitutionally ineligible to the position anyway.
How could she be constitutionally ineligible? The Constitution doesn't refer to secretary of state and there are no requirements to being one except to be nominated and confirmed. So far as I know, you don't even need to be a citizen.
Jdeeripper, your comment about our future first lady lacks class. I'm not a fan of hers at all, in any respect, but that comment is tasteless.
A senator is far more powerful in practical terms than a Secretary of State. If she so chooses, Hillary could become majority leader of the senate quite easily--not just because of her run for the presidency, but because Harry Reid is a moron (seriously, the man is one of those people so stupid, you wonder how they breath.)
Skyler said...
"How could she be constitutionally ineligible?"
Clinton was last elected to the Senate in 2006. If the pay of the Secretary of State has been increased in the last two years, then it is a civil office under the authority of the United States, the emoluments of which have been increased during the time for which Clinton was elected, making her ineligible to be appointed to it under Article I § 6.
Simon, that's simply silly and I challenge you to find a cite backing up your claim.
The amount she is paid for the job is easily changed. If she were to be so restricted in her pay, and I don't find that argument convincing, then the easiest thing in the world is to keep her pay the same while in the new job.
Article 1 §6 paragraph 2 says:
"No Senatory or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office."
The clear intent of this is to prevent a Senator or Representative from creating a new civil office, or increasing the pay of a civil office and then getting themselves appointed to the jobs they created or improved.
The salary of Secretary of State has not been increased, except for cost of living increases which somehow haven't tripped the restraints of the 27th Amendment. Since even the 27th Amendment allows cost of living increases, then any such cost of living increase for secretary of state can likewise be ignored.
The civil office of secretary of state is not newly created.
So, just because secretary of state might get more pay than a senator (and I don't know that this is true either), there's no constitutional bar to her being appointed to that civil office.
But B. Hussein Obama would be an idiot to put his enemy in such an important post.
Blogger Skyler said...Jdeeripper, your comment about our future first lady lacks class. I'm not a fan of hers at all, in any respect, but that comment is tasteless.
Why? It was a comment about Obama's supposed contempt for women.
I simply pointed out that he chose to marry a woman who looks like a homely she-male.
I'm sure he loves his daughters and they're female.
But then they are HIS daughters.
I'm just spreading the truth around.
"Does anyone else get the vibe from Obama that he doesn't really like or respect women?"
That's definitely been my feeling. It's also probably part of his appeal to many women (who mostly don't like or respect women either).
Skyler, you're arguing that the plain meaning of the text is "silly." That's a tough row to hoe. It doesn't matter that the office wasn't created during Clinton's tenure, that's not what the clause says; it bars appointment to offices whose emoluments (which includes but is not limited to salary, McLean v. United States, 226 U.S. 374 (1912)) have been increased. If the Secretary of State's pay has increased in the last two years, the Constitution presents an obstacle to appointing Clinton.
You ask for citations in support of the proposition that the text means what it so clearly says. Authoritative caselaw is limited for the reason that Ex Parte Levitt was not decided on the merits: hard to find someone with standing to challenge an appointment. That leaves us with precedents in the opinions of the DoJ. Here are some examples. In the late 1980s, some consideration was given to nominating Senator Hatch to the Supreme Court but OLC concluded that this would violate Article I § 6 because Hatch had voted on a pay raise for members of the court. See Meese et. al, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution 84 (205). Consider further the so-called "Saxbe fix." Senator Saxbe was ruled to be capable of appointment as Attorney General, despite his having voted on a pay raise for that office, but only on the proviso that he draw the salary as it existed prior to his vote to increase it. See id. at 83. Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis. (This rather suspect dodge was later repudiated by the Reagan DOJ, and has been mostly dead ever since so far as I can tell.)
More recently, the OLC's memorandum of May 30th 2002 concluded that the appointment of a member of the House to a civil office of the United States did not violate Article I § 6 because that office had no formal pay. But as with the Saxbe fix, it is clear (indeed, in the 2002 memo, it was made explicit and relied on as an assumption) that these are exceptions to a background rule you claim doesn't exist.
Lastly, I have no idea why you think that the salary of the Secretary of state would implement the 27th Amendment ("[t]he salary of Secretary of State has not been increased, except for cost of living increases which somehow haven't tripped the restraints of the 27th Amendment").
I referred to the 27th Amendment because the courts have concluded that cost of living adjustments do not constitute a salary increase and thus do not violate the 27th Amendment. This has not been addressed by the Supreme Court, it denied cert so it's safe to assume that the lower court decision wasn't too controversial.
I'm unaware of any salary increase for Sec'y of State while Clinton was in office except for COLA. I may be wrong, but that's how I remember it. If COLA increases don't violate the 27th Amendment, then by analogy, they would not violate Art. 1, §6.
But I accept your other points and concede that you have a legitimate argument where I had not seen one earlier.
I still think she would never accept such a job, and I seriously doubt Obama would apppoint an enemy to such a powerful subordinate role. But politicians often do very strange things.
Errata: obviously "implicate" not "implement" in my previous comment.
Skyler:
The case that you're referring to, Shaffer v. Clinton, 54 F. Supp.2d 1014 (D. Colo. 1999) was reversed on appeal for want of standing, 240 F.3d 878 (10th Cir. 2001), which extinguishes the district court's ruling on the merits, see Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 94 (1998). As you mention, the Supreme Court denied cert, but it isn't "safe to assume that the lower court decision wasn't too controversial"; the court has reminded us repeatedly that denial of cert implies nothing as to the merits of the suit, see Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 296 (1989), and we should be even more hesitant to infer a view on the merits when the decision below dismissed the case for want of standing rather than tackling the merits.
The difficulty with comparing the 27th Amendment to Article I § 6 is that they use different words. The former requires an election to take place before a law "varying the compensation" of members of Congress goes into effect; the latter enjoins the appointment of a member of Congress to a civil office "the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time."
The "emoluments" of an office include compensation, United States v. New Jersey, 194 F.3d 426 (3rd Cir. 1999) ("'emolument'" is defined to include salary received from employment"), but are not limited thereto. Article II § 1 provides that "[t]he President shall, at stated times, receive for his services, a compensation ... and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them" (emphasis added). Hamilton, in The Federalist, No. 73, referred to the discretionary power of Congress "over the salary and emoluments of the Chief Magistrate" (emphasis added). And Article V of the Articles of Confederation provided that "no delegate to Congress could hold "any office under the United States, for which he, or another for his benefit, receives any salary, fees or emolument of any kind."
Thus, even if a COLA is not an increase in compensation, it wouldn't necessarily follow that it is not an increase in the emoluments of an office.
I bow to overwhelmingly superior knowlege.
"she does not know how to run a big and demoralized group of people"
Isn't this the sixth campaign myth?
Clinton's campaign was derailed by the media failing to do their job and making collective googoo eyes at Obama for about two months. Clinton's campaign wasn't run as well as Obama's (especially in thinking outside the box) but it wasn't the disaster that Obama groupies paint it.
It's worth remembering that her campaign recovered and she was regularly beating him in elections.
That said, I don't think there's a chance in hell he'd appoint her as SoS unless he has in mind some new ways to humiliate her.
If Thunder Thighs becomes the 3rd female Sec. of State then she will pull back into her history and fire everyone in that department and start from scratch. She's good at that. Firing people I mean.
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