No Escape for Lieberman

HARTFORD, Conn. – Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman took another step Tuesday toward mending his relationship with Democrats, saying that Barack Obama's actions since winning the presidency have been "just about perfect." "Everything that President-elect Obama has done since election night has been just about perfect, both in terms of a tone and also in terms of the strength of the names that have either been announced or are being discussed to fill his administration," Lieberman said during a visit to Hartford... Click here for full details.   My comment: In the kaleidoscopic lights of politics, I can spot a loser a mile away. When Lieberman chose to become bedfellows with John McCain, I knew right away that he made a loser of himself. He rolled over from Independent to a turncoat to infamy.    Lieberman's speeches and appearances for the republicans during the campaign will be on the record forever and there is no expunging or editing of history.  Lieberman's vitriol against Barack Obama will haunt Lieberman's future among his constituents but what is embarrassing now and in the forthcoming months is  that whenever he opens his mouth in praise of Obama, Lieberman is eating crow.

A Triumph for Hillary, Many Women Agree

Hillary Clinton, a first lady turned senator turned almost-president, is now transforming herself again, this time into the nation's top diplomat. But she is also back to a role she cannot seem to shake: a canvas for women's highest hopes and deepest fears about the workplace.    As she pondered this week whether to trade her hard-won independence and elected office for a job working for a more powerful man, mothers and schoolteachers and law partners mulled in tandem with her. After eight years of building her own constituency, how could Mrs. Clinton surrender it? they asked. Is secretary of state a promotion or an acknowledgment that her political prospects are now limited? And ultimately, how well will her male boss treat her? As news spread on Friday evening that Mrs. Clinton had decided to accept the job, so did a basic consensus: the assignment was probably a triumph for Mrs. Clinton, if a costly one.   Click http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/us/politics/22clinton.html?_r=1 for more details.   My comment: The foregoing is of course from women's point of view. From a detached point of view, Hillay is a virtual caterpillar on ever ongoing metamorphosis and never really becoming a butterfly. Women would like to think that Hillary has triumphed, albeit pyrrhic, oblivious to clever and subtle shuffle of the president-elect to put her out of the way and in her place..  As Secretary of State she will be implementing foreign policy that is unpalatable to her taste, based on her previous campaign. She will be implementing policy that she mocked and detested, using that as battlecry to rally women who form the cracks in her ceiling.  Barack Obama could have selected Diane Feinstein as a matter of course, but no ... it must be Hillary Clinton to rub it in... in the same manner that John McCain paid homage to the president-elct in Chicago to show the world that their claim of experience on Day One is nothing but hot air.

Team of Rivals

CHICAGO – The bitter general election campaign behind them, President-elect Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain are seeking common ground on a range of issues in hopes of engendering greater bipartisan cooperation in Washington. The erstwhile rivals met for 40 minutes at Obama's transition headquarters Monday to discuss possible collaboration on climate change, immigration, Guantanamo Bay and more. It was their first meeting since Nov. 4, when Obama vanquished McCain in an electoral landslide. Last Thursday, Obama reached out to another former competitor, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom he is considering as a possible secretary of state. My comment: Even before the ink dried up, Hillary R Clinton was airborne enroute to Chicago with high expectations to become Secretary of State. She was indeed dying to become one - with one minor problem: she still has to be confirmed by the Senate. At the rate the vetting is going, Bill Clinton could yet derail her chances. Considering how she mocked and criticized Barack Obama on foreign policy issues, Hillary will eat crow during the confimation hearings. And here comes John McCain, hat in hand, talking with Barack Obama in Chicago. There was no earth shaking event to discuss nor any anticipation of a job in the coming administration. It was neither a photo op event, as the Obama circle claimed it to be. It was an event showing the vanquished paying homage to the victor, not trumpeted as such but nevertheless a subtle way of making rabid critics of the campaign eat crow. And Senator John Lieberman almost fell on his face, profusely pledging his support and allegiance to the president-elect, as if his only redemption is eating crow.