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By DAVE KITCHELL
LOGANSPORT - There is some irony in the supposed leaked rumor that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to become the next secretary of state.
After all, it was Clinton who last spring was running campaign commercials asking voters who they would want to answer a phone at 3 a.m. in the White House. A year later, the tables have turned. Clinton may be making the 3 a.m. calls to Obama if pirates commandeer more oil tankers as they have this week near the Suez Canal. She may be calling if Fidel Castro dies in Cuba, if China invades Taiwan or if Russia invades another former Soviet republic.
So far, there has been surprisingly little response to coverage of the secretary of state appointment. Few would probably argue she’s eminently qualified, and having a husband who is a former president can’t hurt - or at least it shouldn’t, even if it does. The fact Bill Clinton will have to pass up work at his own foundation is a minor point. At his age, he can afford to take a passive role in that foundation and save fund-raising for it to his real retirement years.
But the real issue to think about in the secretary of state appointment is how the United States is going to be perceived on a world stage. We’ve come through an era of firsts. Madeleine Albright was the first female Secretary of State. Colin Powell was the first African-American secretary of state. Condoleeza Rice was the first African-American woman to be Secretary of State.
This job is one that is as out of sight and out of mind to the rest of the world as any in a presidential cabinet. Still, it’s an important one. History has shown that strong personalities or authority figures tend to do well. Others who are less than that seem to be non-threatening to foreign enemies, but do they really take them seriously?
Carol Burnett rocketed to fame in the 1950s when she performed the comedic song, “I Lost My Heart to John Foster Dulles.” Maybe it was the “dull” syllable in that secretary of state’s name that gave him a subordinate status in the Eisenhower Administration, but his significance during the Cold War could not be taken for granted. That’s why there’s an airport named for him and not any one of dozens of presidents in D.C. today.
George Schultz and Warren Christopher are not exactly name-droppers, but both were respected as Republican and Democrat secretaries of state.
Since Henry Kissinger however, being a secretary of state has been a hard act to follow. It’s the foreign policy equivalent of succeeding John Wooden as UCLA basketball coach. Eventually, someone did lead UCLA to another national championship, before being dismissed. I’m not sure we’ve yet to see the caliber of a Kissinger since the 1970s. Kissinger’s work in Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union at a time when it counted laid groundwork for the peace that most of the Baby Boomer generation has enjoyed since then.
In times of war, a secretary of defense who’s good at what he does is imperative. During war and peace, a secretary of state can prevent a war, end a war and expand America’s influence into the places it needs to be.
Not that I’m a doomsayer, but the danger we collectively face as Americans is that our domestic troubles have become so burdensome that it’s easy to forget dozens of nations who look to us as a leader and as the key player in the economic, political and security issues they face as well.
Had someone asked me a week ago to name my top 100 candidates for secretary of state, I wouldn’t have picked Clinton because I couldn’t fathom that Obama would. But if he is indeed considering her, I can’t think of many stronger personalities with previous international experience who qualify for the job.
Sure, maybe she didn’t come under gunfire in Bosnia as she claimed in the campaign. But on many fronts, the country is under fire and it is important to have a secretary of state “ready to lead from day one” as Clinton described herself during the campaign.
The best secretaries of state serve as the president’s alter ego and conscience on all foreign policy matters. The best examples have had some vision for not only America’s role during a specific administration, but the course of world history and the role America has in it.
No secretary of state should be sending out S.O.S. signals, but the signal Obama has apparently sent is that he wants someone who won’t hesitate to call a president at 3 a.m., even if she’d prefer to be taking it instead of making it.
Kitchell teaches journalism at Ball State University.
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This entry was written by and posted on November 21, 2008 at 2:01 pm and filed under David Kitchell Column. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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