Hillary Clinton Considers Secretary of State Position

By Ali M.

While many speculations have arisen since Barack Obama became president-elect of the United States, an idea of who the position will go to has been narrowed down.

Although Senator Hillary R. Clinton's potential seat as Secretary of State has been only a leak, an article written on the www.guardian.co.uk has stated that Clinton is taking the position into consideration.

Right now, Barack Obama's advisers have gone into deeper research of Clinton's past, including her foundation that distributes millions upon millions of dollars to Africa. The fact that they research her past is a necessity, as to cause no future conflicts. Regardless however, his advisers feel that this will not be a problem.

What is causing her to consider things in such minute detail is the fact that the two positions of Secretary of State and Senator are quite different. The Secretary of State title would only be for the four or eight years, while her Senator position is a seat for life. She would be taking the place of current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (R).

Obama is looking to put those that have been his rivals in the past as to have a better form of a bipartisan cabinet, as well as a wider variety of views. I feel having Clinton as Secretary of State would be a prime example of this. Yes, she is a Democrat so she is of the same party, but she went up against him for a while to become the nominee of the Democratic Party. She has worked with foreign affairs and defense in the past, as well as put an effortless battle for healthcare, and had supported the war in Iraq. Now, however, they basically agree that it is time our troops come home.

At first, I have to be honest, I didn't think it was a good idea to have former rivals be apart of his cabinet because it may seem as though it was hypocritical of him, or any other president for that matter. But after analyzing his views and considerations, it makes much more sense to have people that do not have the exact same views as him.

Having people such as this in his cabinet would be able to keep him as open-minded as possible, and give him many more allies. His meeting with Sen. John McCain was a great way to publicize the fact that he wants to remain friends with those that he had gone against for a year and a half. It also shows that he will keep in mind the concerns of Republicans, which is necessary since the Senate has majority Republicans, regardless the increase in Democrats it had this past election, although the increase was quite large. They fell short of the 60 necessary to make it impossible for Republicans to reject completely what Obama suggests.

McCain will not be offered a job in the cabinet, but his views will be considered on a number of issues, including their agreement of the fate of the Guatanamo Bay, immigration reform, stem cell research, and so on.

Ultimately, I think the way president-elect Barack Obama is going about his future role in the United States is great, and he is certainly appealing to many when he involves all citizens of the country's ideas.