I’m not going to get into the habit of discussing transition rumors for the Obama administration. But one of the major criticisms directed at both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during their primary campaign duel was the fact that neither of them had much foreign policy experience. So this doesn’t strike me as a particularly inspired choice from the perspective of “hands on” foreign policy chops. That it’s driven primarily by domestic political maneuvering is a point that won’t be lost on the world, and seems like a clumsy initial gesture reinforcing the common wisdom that in the U.S., foreign policy is something of an afterthought. Another concern I’d have is over who would be responsible for selecting the various undersecretaries and other political appointees. If it’s Hillary, that means that to a certain extent we’d be looking at a hybrid Obama-Clinton foreign policy, with a very healthy dose of Bill represented in both the former and the latter.
