Left Flank

Please tell me President-Elect Barack H. Obama is just checking off names on his lists, and checking it twice.

Over the course of the past 24 hours, sources close to Clinton have softened their one-time solid public position that she would not be interested in a Cabinet position. Those sources now say she is clearly contemplating how she can serve the Obama administration.

Clinton traveled to Chicago, Illinois, on Thursday to meet with Obama, sources said, and the two had a «serious discussion» about the issue.

Clinton's response to Obama's overture is unknown, but sources said the New York senator left the meeting with the impression that if she were interested in the post, it would be hers. VideoWatch more on the speculation surrounding Clinton »

Under these circumstances, one source said, a president-elect does not meet with potential Cabinet secretaries unless he is serious about making an offer.

Obama has had «great interest» in asking Clinton to be secretary of state «for a while,» another source close to the Obama transition team said. iReport.com: Whom should Obama pick?

«You've got to assume that Hillary Clinton did not come to visit the city of Chicago,» the source said.

Should Clinton take the position, the transition team and the senator would have to work out how her husband, former President Clinton, would continue his work with the Clinton Global Initiative without complicating her work as secretary of state, another source close to the Obama transition team said.

What about that legendarily tight-lipped staff? Is this a trial balloon?

How shrewd would that be, a Secretary of State with conflicts of interests? But, way to go for the team, guys!

Seriously, Richard Holbrooke is waiting.

It's a similar story at the State Department, where the Great Mentioner has dropped a number of plausible names, including those of Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. Either would be a good choice, if it didn't mean passing over the person they both get their best foreign policy advice from, Richard Holbrooke. Holbrooke dominates the field like no one else on the Democratic side. He has a quick and supple mind, understands all the issues, knows the leaders, and has a proven record as a diplomat and peacemaker. At Dayton, Holbrooke single-handedly ended the war in Bosnia by sheer force of personality.

Holbrooke has some personal defects, too. He is legendary for his relentless ambition and self-promotion. To say he rubs some people the wrong way puts the proposition mildly—he's a handful. He also backed Hillary Clinton in the primaries. But as with Summers, Holbrooke's flaws hardly rate in the context of the urgent need to rebuild relationships, manage complex security threats, and develop a tough-minded liberal vision of American's role in the world. The president-elect should pick Holbrooke simply because he's the best available player at a hinge moment in history.

As I have argued concerning Summers, genius is not all it purports to be, and experience speaks for itself. Competence also trumps politics. Obama can handle a little personality. What he doesn't need is a supposed soldier waiting to jump on his corpse.

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Bloggers might be the only people who take Washington seriously, if Rahm Emanuel and Stephen Colbert are any indication. Emanuel roasted Colbert, and both roasted all in attendance, to tackle spina bifida. The sound is dodgy, and the video looks like a bad wedding job, but Washington insiders are venting before messianic politics puts too much of a brake on humor. Colbert did the classy thing, and invited guests to venture on his show, and if they did it to end spina bifida, he'd let them read his questions.

Talking about cabinet politics, Stephen Colbert begs for a job walking over Bill Clinton's reputation:

(Speaking to Rahm) «Can I be in your cabinet? If Hillary says no, can I be Secretary of State? I promise I'll be good, I'll just sit in the back of the room, I won't say anything! No special conditions, I'll agree with everything that you say. And I promise, unlike Bill Clinton, if I say something nice about Barack in public, I won't look like I'm trying to pass a stone.»

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Lee Atwater's career provides a serious reframing of the last few decades of American political history. Instead of taking it president-by-president, or party-by-party, now there's the campaign help angle. I'm pissed that paid hacks do have such influence.

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I voted for Barack H. Obama for one reason: enacting universal health care reform. Congress and the Obama campaign have laid the foundations for health care insurance that take the Clinton follies into account.

But not everybody thinks 2009 has to be a repeat of 1994. Since June, staff members from three key Senate committees--Budget, Finance, and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions--have been meeting regularly to map out a health care strategy for the coming year. They've formed three working groups: one focused on expanding insurance coverage, one focused on improving the system's functioning, and one focused on financing a new initiative. They've also been meeting with officials representing almost every key stakeholder involved in the health care debate, from doctors to insurers to consumer advocates to employers. The goal of these meetings has been to develop a common vision among Senate Democrats for what universal health care should look like--and how to pass it. Although the discussions still have a ways to go, a rough consensus is starting to take shape.

According to multiple participants in the process, the final proposal will probably resemble the initiative Obama touted on the campaign trail. People who like their insurance could keep it; others could buy coverage through a cooperative, like the one federal employees use, in which insurers couldn't exclude people with pre-existing conditions. There would be subsidies, so that everybody could afford a plan, plus serious efforts to restrain future growth in health spending so that the actual price of insurance would start to come down.

Agreement is also emerging over a roll-out strategy. It would kick off as early as this month, when Max Baucus--whose reputation for bipartisan compromise makes him an unlikely vessel for liberal ambition--introduces a white paper outlining reform options for universal coverage. Afterward, if all goes well, he and Ted Kennedy--who helped drive the process from Massachusetts, where he is receiving treatment for brain cancer--will craft a full-fledged bill. The idea, according to a senior staffer, would be to introduce the measure early next year, after the inauguration: «We intend to push for health care out of the box,» the staffer says.

Of course, drafting a proposal is relatively easy. Passing one--well, that's another story. But Baucus himself confirms what staffers have been saying for months: Assuming Senate Democrats can find some common ground on reform, they would consider using the budget reconciliation process to enact it.

This is a crucial development. The rules of reconciliation limit debate, restrict amendments, and prohibit filibusters. It's the one time a simple majority of 50-plus-one votes--rather than the 60 it takes to break a filibuster--can definitively pass legislation. It's a brass-knuckles way to move legislation and, as such, nobody's first choice. But, if the Republicans won't negotiate, Baucus has told me, the Democrats might have to use it. «My first preference is always to work together with my [Republican] colleagues to get legislation done,» Baucus says. «When that's not possible, I'll find another way.»

None of this makes universal coverage a done deal. The emerging consensus over principles and strategy could still break down over details, such as how to pay for the subsidies or whether to create a new public insurance program, modeled on Medicare, into which anybody could enroll. Baucus and Kennedy would also have to find common ground with colleagues who are supporting an alternative, bipartisan bill Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden has spent the last two years promoting. And that's just in the Senate. Over in the House, discussions are more embryonic and scattered; although traditional champions of reform like John Dingell, Pete Stark, and Henry Waxman are ready to go, Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team may not be.

But Obama can push them, and he would be well advised to do so. Notwithstanding all the knee-jerk pessimism, the environment for health care reform is a lot more favorable than it was in 1994. And, while taking on health reform in the first year would still pose political risks for the Obama administration, so would delaying it.

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David Remnick mentions how President Barack H. Obama, before announcing his candidacy last year, used biblical tropes to express political tactics. Even more than building a multiracial coalition, it's this use of religious themes to bind fractious interest groups makes the Republican pandering to social conservatives almost offensive.

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Alluding to the debacle over gays in the military, which along with Hillary Rodham Clinton's later health care defeat, derailed the first Clinton administration before it even exited the transition period, The Economist predicts the Obama administration has its own test coming.

Mr Obama told an abortion-rights group during the campaign that the first thing he would do as president would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would do away with many state-level restrictions on abortion. If he does so, he could find his popularity immediately on the wane. Americans tolerate abortion rights but most people approve of restrictions like parental-notification laws. But Mr Obama also said during the campaign that he would sign a ban on late-term abortions, if they included exceptions for the life and health of the mother. If he pushed Congress to send him such a bill, he could not only win himself some credit with America's broad middle, but also get some grudging respect from social conservatives.

Markers, I'm placing markers on all sorts of bets.

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For «foreign policy» night, there wasn't too much red meat on the foreign policy bone tonight. And, for all of Bill Clinton's oratorical brilliance and humor, I just cringe to hear in 2008 the same old juxtaposition between nationalism and internationalism.

He will work for an America with more partners and fewer adversaries. He will rebuild our frayed alliances and revitalize the international institutions which help to share the costs of the world's problems and to leverage our power and influence. He will put us back in the forefront of the world's fight to reduce nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and to stop global warming. He will continue and enhance our nation's global leadership in an area in which I am deeply involved, the fight against AIDS, TB and malaria, including a renewal of the battle against HIV/AIDS here at home. He will choose diplomacy first and military force as a last resort. But in a world troubled by terror; by trafficking in weapons, drugs and people; by human rights abuses; by other threats to our security, our interests, and our values, when he cannot convert adversaries into partners, he will stand up to them.

«People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.» is a catchy pun, but the Republicans can spin it around endlessly and still have an honorable rejoinder.

My fellow Democrats, sixteen years ago, you gave me the profound honor to lead our party to victory and to lead our nation to a new era of peace and broadly shared prosperity.

Together, we prevailed in a campaign in which the Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be Commander-in-Chief. Sound familiar? It didn't work in 1992, because we were on the right side of history. And it won't work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on the right side of history.

This fatalistic argument will go nowhere. Firstly, President Clinton did make mistakes due to his lack of foreign policy experience and a cabinet divided between progressives and moderates. Just recall who didn't reverse decades of bad policy on Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It will take more than God and a little international cooperation for the US to grasp how the world is different in 2008. it will take more than humor to deal with more problems with less real power and fewer options. It will take more than unity at home to grapple with a fractious, multipolar world.

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