ON another note:

As chief executive, Obama isn’t supposed to be making decisions about Congressional matters. (Separate branch of government.) Think about what happened to LBJ who thought he could influence all his old pals. Nope. They wouldn’t even have lunch with him.

If Obama had a significant role in Lieberman’s getting to stay at the dance, shame on the Dems, AGAIN, for having nobody they can look to for real leadership. And, shame on Obama for not pointing this out.

This gets her onboard and highly visible so she can’t do much that will undercut Obama’s administration domestically. If she does, she undercuts herself. It gets Bill onboard in a peripheral way but if Hillary is in the cabinet he is less able to take potshots.

A problem remains of course, in that Bill is entirely capable of ensuring Hillary’s failure to do anything right. I think it is unconscious on his part, but all the more dangerous for that.

I THINK Hilary can be a good employee; I certainly hope so. Obama can fire her in a heartbeat but that would not be auspicious for his reputation as a wise decision maker nor auspicious for our relationships around the world.

If she gets and takes the job, what then? In 8 years she will be nearly as old as McCain is now, give or take a couple of years. In 4 years, can she run against Obama when she is working for him?

And then I say, again, this is brilliant. And if she and Bill fail the entrance exams, maybe they’re toast. Maybe that’s the brilliance.

I really have no idea.

Day to Day management of the Department is usually the primary responsibility of the Deputy Secretary — true in most departments. We still don’t know if Hillary gets the pick, or whether it will mostly come from the WH. Normally I would agree that the state of Hillary’s campaign, and her lack of strategic management skills are a black-mark on what could be expected of her as management, but I want to hold judgment to see who gets the political deputy and assistant level appointments. I tend to think Obama may have fairly clear programatic goals here that will very much influence appointments. For instance should we see Sam Nunn get his special interest, Arms Control, as an undersecretaryship, (Nunn-Lugar which became Obama-Lugar last congress), — Nunn was one of the very early promoters of Obama’s candidacy, — we will see a slightly different set of relationships in State, and between the Department and the WH.

It is important to distinguish appointments on several levels — some have huge public value, as I think Hillary does in much of the world. Others are people of fairly deep technical merit — as Nunn would have on Arms Control.

It would be difficult to find a department or agency within today’s Federal Bureaucracy that is NOT filled with demoralized career staff. Every department needs yeoman and heroic efforts to get it back to competent and moderately productive.

There aren’t that many miracle worker agency heads available.

A well-informed source tells me that the only competent manager State has had in many years was Colin Powell: that Powell genuinely cared about the well-being of our Foreign Service Officers and their families, and addressed it effectively.

State right now is seriously demoralized. It lacks FSOs with requisite language skills and depth of experience. If Clinton is confirmed as SoS, State needs a more than competent manager as second in command to do the unglamorous but critical work of rebuilding the place.

Of course, she’s had to make amends. She’s been a good little panderer ever since.

The neocons are suspicious, and we’re getting quite a pushback from the media to a Clinton SoS.

Should make for good political theater, if nothing else. Happy days are here again.

Most succinct summing up ever.

When Hillary becomes Sec. of State, Gov. David Paterson should pick Eliot Spitzer to replace her in the Senate … if only Spitzer had had airport sex with men in the public rest room.