Saturday, May 31, 2008

Perhaps I spoke too soon

My last two posts addressed my intent to explore the History News Network, a web site that intends to look at politics through the eyes of historians. I've come across this post from three days ago written by Professor Melvin Small. He contends that Obama should pick Hillary as his running mate.

Small points out that "she has run a less-than-honorable campaign and represents the old politics against which [Obama] has railed." Nevertheless, we get the Kennedy-Johnson argument yet again, plus the novel idea that "recent vice presidents generally accepted their meager assignments like good team players" (he does except Cheney from that category). Of course, there is very little in the Clinton pattern that would suggest that Hillary would do that.

And what about the concern that Bill would be unable to involve himself in the running of the government? Small has that covered.
That’s a no brainer. When John Paul Stevens retires from the Supreme Court, Obama could nominate Bill to replace him guaranteeing that he would be kept busy and out of the way.
What a remarkable concept of the United States Supreme Court, that it, the vital third branch of our government, should be used as senior day care, a place to stow the inconvenient. This is nitwittery of the highest order.

I have said before that Hillary is not my candidate of choice, and I believe she represents an older partisan way of running things that we need to try to transcend. That will be tough enough for Obama to achieve without bringing along someone with her baggage. And, for those people who think that Hillary will be content to attend funerals, well, her very popularity argues against that - there would be a lot of pressure to give her something meaty to do, which would inflame the considerable number of people who find her repellent.

And the potential conflict of interest in having a husband rule from the highest bench in the land on matters concerning the vice president (or, if tragedy were to strike, president) is huge. I hope that Professor Small is joshing.

(By the way, I don't think the Clinton-Obama ticket would have been a dream, either. Sometimes styles are simply incompatible.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

obama should pick gore!

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