I know that Obama seems to have decided to use Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals as some kind of template for his presidency, but I wonder: is it wise to bring Hillary Clinton into the fold as Secretary of State?

It is true that Hillary has been making all the right moves of late to allay any concerns that she might take a Machiavellian path that undermines the administration. And I suppose there is something to that old adage about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. While the president-elect may see this as an opportunity to neutralize a potentially powerful, recalcitrant foe, it carries some significant risk.

Perhaps most significant of those risks is Mr. Clinton. It seems pretty plain that Bill still holds a grudge from the campaign. I could see him going off the reservation, disruptively opening up back channels and using his proximity to Hillary to try and get back into the game. It’s a sure bet that he’ll meddle.

But maybe Obama will pull a rabbit out of a stovepipe hat and then magically transform Hillary Clinton into William Henry Seward. But I dunno — seems fraught.

Team of Rivals

Dramatis personæ:

Barack Obama …………….President Abraham Lincoln

Hillary Clinton ……………..Senator William Henry Seward

Bill Clinton ………………….Salmon P. Chase

UPDATE:

See what I mean?

From the AP today at 11:27 am:

Hillary Clinton will say on Tuesday night that her rival Barack Obama has enough delegates to secure the U.S. Democratic Party presidential nomination.

From the AP today at 11:28 am:

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is “absolutely not” planning to concede the campaign to Barack Obama on Tuesday night, Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe told CNN on Tuesday.

“No one has the number to be the nominee of the Democratic party right now,” he said.

I wonder if Geri Ferraro and this woman shared a cab?

A few days ago, Andrew Sullivan described the Clintons as being “riddled with narcissism and pathology,” running an “ugly,” “feckless,” loser of a campaign.

With those words in mind, I am detecting a new tactic from the Clinton campaign.  It seems the new idea is to convince all those suggestible, uneducated citizens who comprise their base that an evil conspiracy has formed to dupe them into giving up on Team Clinton.  While the rest of us are just media-fed zombies who think that Barack Obama has an unassailable delegate lead, Bill knows the truth.  While campaigning in the “boutique” state of South Dakota, Bill Clinton is reported to have said this about his wife and Barack Obama:

Oh, this is so terrible: The people they want her. Oh, this is so terrible: She is winning the general election, and he is not. Oh my goodness, we have to cover this up.

Ok, this is the “general election” that happens in November, right?  Six months from now?  Just checking.

This next part is completely crazy:

She is winning the general election today and he is not, according to all the evidence.

If you notice, there hasn’t been a lot of publicity on these polls I just told you about. It is the first time you’ve heard it? Why do you think that is? Why do you think? Don’t you think if the polls were the reverse and he was winning the Electoral College against Senator McCain and Hillary was losing it, it would be blasted on every television station?

You would know it wouldn’t you? It wouldn’t be a little secret. And there is another Electoral College poll that I saw yesterday had her over 300 electoral votes. … She will win the general election if you nominate her. They’re just trying to make sure you don’t.

Definitely a conspiracy here, just like the “suicide” of Vince Foster.  Or the Whitewater deal.  Except this conspiracy is vast and involves virtually every media organ in our nation–including FOX!  It’s diabolical!  Hillary Clinton is actually winning the election that won’t happen for half a year; if it weren’t for this evil, meddling cabal, we’d all know the truth!

Seriously, how much contempt for your supporters must you have to shovel this horseshit at them?

Today’s Washington Post contained this little gem:

[T]he next day, with renewed vigor, Clinton compared her effort to seat delegates from Florida and Michigan to the abolition of slavery . . . .

Just when you thought it couldn’t get more insane.  It was hard enough to stomach the fact that Clinton had initially supported the disenfranchisement of Florida and Michigan voters and then–when it became politically expedient–suddenly became their most strident defender.

But now she’s making metaphors about the abolition of slavery where she magically transforms from Simon Legree into Frederick Douglass. Poof!  And let’s not forget that a black man, who won the delegate math for the nomination several months ago, has to put up with this shit from a white, millionaire, former first lady.

I’m sure the Clinton speech writers are already workshopping her July 4th speech:

This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a woman in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon her to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today?

Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!”

To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.

My subject, then, fellow citizens, is “Counting the Votes in Florida and Michigan.” I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave’s point of view. Standing here, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July.

Expect another dazzling performance of oratory, like this one:

Tomorrow, Democratic voters in the great state of Oregon will go to the polls to register their decision between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

As a former resident of Oregon, I can say that it is emphatically the whitest place on planet earth.  And I can’t help but notice that all the major pollsters’ data predict a solid black guy Obama victory.  Public Policy Polling has even broken down the numbers for us, declaring that

Obama is winning pretty much across the board. He dominates among male voters (60-31) while also maintaining a small edge with female voters (48-45). He is leading with every racial group, and also leads across three of four age groups. The only demographic Clinton has the advantage with is senior citizens, among whom she leads 50-41, a margin too small for her to have much of a chance of knocking off Obama.

I guess when Hillary said that she was stronger with “hardworking white” voters she meant to exclude the ones that live in Pacific Northwest states with names beginning with “O.”

Olbermann gets it.