With Washington still in the post-coital afterglow of Tuesday's inauguration, Barack Obama has been getting down to work on what seems to have been two of his primary objectives: neutralizing the threat that Hillary Clinton poses to his re-nomination in 2012, and effectively sidelining her with a nice title while taking key areas of United States interest out of her portfolio.
Thursday afternoon's announcement of Richard Holbrooke as envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and George Mitchell to the Middle East was co-branded and gave Hillary credit for building the team, but make no mistake, her influence is being strategically diminished within the Obama administration.
The media spin has been predictably positive and stresses the importance of teamwork to tackle current US foreign policy challenges. But a few bloggers on the left are already starting to question whether Holbrooke is the right man for the job. Presumably Holbrooke and Mitchell will do the heavy lifting in the key zones at Obama's direction while Hillary negotiates trade agreements with Caribbean nations and doles out freebies in Africa.
Obviously Obama's done a masterful job of co-opting Hillary into his cabinet and making her responsible (in name) for his foreign policy... thereby making it almost impossible for her to run against him on foreign policy in 2012.
Simultaneously he's taken two of the most high-profile items in her foreign-service portfolio off her plate with Holbrooke and Mitchell. That's like putting YOU in charge of the show.. but I'll handle the content. It's almost a no-lose situation for Obama because no matter how badly he conducts foreign policy, his chief rival in the party is just as responsible for it.
Whatever you want to say about Bill and Hillary Clinton, they aren't lacking in political savvy. They know what's going on. The question is, once the sting of her new pimp's slap wears off, how will Hillary respond?
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