Heads Exploding

Via the incomparable Bob Somerby, here's David Broder, and it is David this time, as quoted by Chris Matthews on MSNBC, regarding Hillary as Secretary of State:

What Obama needs in the person running the State Department is a diplomat who will carry out his foreign policy. He does not need someone who will tell him how to approach the world or be his mentor in international relations. One of the principal reasons he was elected was that, relying on his instincts, he came to the correct conclusion that war in Iraq was not in American interest. He was more right about that than most of us in Washington, including Hillary Clinton.

Emphasis mine.

Just a short point about that second bold passage, and then on to the meat of the first.

So Obama decided, on his own, that war in Iraq is not in our best interests. That makes me qualified to be a better president than most. Hell, I'd be a better president than Obama because I don't think it's in our best interests to rattle our sabers at Iran until they do something preemptive, or to transfer our soldiers from Iraq to Afghanistan, both of which Obama is either implying he'll do or outright stating we ought to do. In short, being right on Iraq is not, IMO, sole qualification and justification for being President; we have to consider everything else. But the AUMF vote has been made the Golden Rule of who's fit to be President, or even a decent person, and who isn't.

All right. Deep breath.

I kind of see David Broder's point. Obama doesn't need Hillary Clinton to advise him on foreign policy. After all, that's one of the reasons he picked Joe Biden as VP: to cover what could be perceived as a weakness on foreign policy. So he doesn't need Hillary telling him about the world as well as Joe.

And what ego! Presuming to tell the President about foreign policy! Why, you'd almost think that's what the Secretary of State is for! But we were mistaken, of course. Obama doesn't need advice or consent, because he is all-knowing! He's Black Jesus! It must take ego to presume to tell Him what to do. After all, he hasn't even completed his first term as Illinois Senator! And then he won the Presidency! We are dealing with an intellect, quite clearly, vast and cool. What can Hillary, who after all was merely First Lady for eight years, and the junior Senator from New York for eight after that, possibly have to tell Black Jesus? He will wrestle with the problems of the world and break them like twigs!



ABOVE: Black Jesus, only, you know, kind of Caucasian, wrestling with the problems of the world.