By Al Giordano

Now, there's a disappointing image.

I'm among those that would have preferred that the members of the Senate Democratic Caucus had expelled Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman today.

They didn't. Some colleagues are blaming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Others are blaming President-elect Obama.

I don't think such thinking is reality based.

The Senate Caucus rules call for a secret ballot. That's the problem. Nobody can demand any accountability from anybody when there is no transparency as to how each member voted. 

While a secret ballot is a cherished right for a rank-and-file voter, in situations of public responsibility it runs counter to authentic democracy. Legislators - or anyone in a public role, with responsibility to others - ought to be required to make decisions in public.

In many of the indigenous communities where I've worked and sometimes lived, all major decisions are made by public assembly. That's a system that works very well. Everybody's vote on community matters is known to everyone else in the community. If someone is unusually silent about a matter that directly involves them, they can be asked about it aloud. And in general it nips a lot of problems in the bud before they fester into larger conflicts or violence.

That's why I also favor the Employee Free Choice Act, in workplaces, so that workers can know which of our colleagues support being represented by a union or not. Some say that can lead to peer pressure and is therefore somehow undemocratic. No: As workers we share a responsibility to each other and we ought to be accountable for it.

Based on the vote today, I believe that even if Reid and Obama had lobbied every last senator to vote to expel Lieberman, the result, in a secret ballot, would have been the same to keep him.

The problem is not the leaders: it's that, for better or worse, that was the view of the majority of the members, and the existence of the secret ballot - bizarre for elected officials - is what made it possible for them to cast votes without consequences.

There are very good reasons for the Democratic Caucus to change leaders, but they have to do with more important issues than that of one Senator and what kind of personality would best be suited to the new task ahead of governing with a clear majority, something that Reid doesn't seem well suited to do. But I'm not going to use that preference to scapegoat him for Lieber man's salvation today: the blame for that goes around to most of the Democrats in the Senate, and the secret ballot that allows them, as individuals, to escape accountability for their votes.

There can be no party discipline with a secret ballot, and disciplining public officials is a necessary and worthy goal. Changing the rules would, in fact, go a lot farther than changing the leaders and improving the senate. In fact, changing the rules would likely end up in a change of leadership, probably faster than any other route.

Finally, in this process of transition, we're going to win some and we're going to lose some. What's important is that we win or lose like adults, and not let our disappointments or sometimes legitimate anger cloud our strategic thinking for the next battle. This is a series of fights. Those that keep their heads will win more of them.

And on that note, I opine: If the reports of Eric Holder as a possible Attorney General come true (and, again, we won't really know until there is an official statement from Obama or his staff), I think that's a fine choice to bring civil liberties and civil rights back into the legal system after so many years of exile. And it doesn't matter to me a whit who he represented as an attorney because that's also how the legal system should work.

Update: Ha ha. (Thanks to Field reader Kit for this link: "Hillary Clinton could reject State offer.") Here comes the corrective spin, right on queue!

By Al Giordano

"When we have an announcement about Cabinet appointments, we will make it. There is no doubt that I think people want to know who's going to make up our team, and I want to move with all deliberate haste, but I want to emphasize deliberate as well as haste. I'm proud of the choice I made of vice president, partly because we did it right. I'm proud of the choice of chief of staff because we thought it through. And I think it's very important in all these key positions, both in the economic team and the national security team, to -- to get it right and -- and not to be so rushed that you end up making mistakes."

-   President-elect Barack Obama, November 7, 2008

There are many annoying aspects of the noise machine that is blaring that arrogant and cacophonous yet familiar mantra: "Clinton is inevitable."

We heard it for all of 2007 when they told us that Senator Clinton was the inevitable Democratic nominee for president.

And we're hearing it all over again regarding that same Senator Clinton and the position of Secretary of State. "It's a done deal. It's inevitable. He's already offered it. She's already taken it."

I say to you now as I told you and so many others then: It is not inevitable.

And there's a very interesting twist in the story tonight because one Chicagoan of gigantic integrity has stepped forward to insert some reality into the noise.

Abner Mikva - former federal judge, law professor, member of Congress, reformer of Chicago politics, chairman of the Illinois Human Rights Commission... and former White House Counsel to President Bill Clinton - told the New York Times today:

The vetting of Mr. Clinton's myriad philanthropic and business dealings is "complicated, and it may be the complications that are causing hesitation on both sides," said Abner J. Mikva, one of Mr. Obama's closest supporters and a White House counsel during the Clinton administration. "There would have to be full disclosure as to who all were contributors to his library and foundation. I think they'd have to be made public."

While aides to the president-elect declined Monday to discuss what sort of requirements would make it possible for Mrs. Clinton to serve as secretary of state, they said Mr. Obama would not formally offer her the job unless he was satisfied that there would be no conflicts posed by Mr. Clinton's activities abroad.

Associates of the Clintons said that Mr. Clinton was likely to have to make significant concessions and that he was inclined to do so. Among other things, they said, he would probably have to agree not to take money for speeches from foreign businesses that have a stake in the actions of the American government. Another obvious issue, Democratic lawyers said, would be whether Mr. Clinton's foundation should accept money from foreign governments, businesses or individuals for the foundation's philanthropic activities and if it should disclose those donors publicly.

"The problem is it's going to require some sacrifice by him," said a former Clinton aide who is not involved in the discussions but did not want to be identified because the talks are confidential. "If he's not willing to do that, it could blow up."

One proposal, floated by Mr. Mikva and several other aides involved in the vetting process, would be for Mr. Clinton to separate himself from the activities of his foundation, including raising money.

"It's not just what he does or says - it's the fact that the foundation is involved with foreign countries, some of which might well be in conflict with U.S. policy," Mr. Mikva said. "It's more than a legal problem - there are ethical problems and appearance problems."

God bless that man. Abner Mikva is a national treasure, one that has lived long enough with a front row seat to history to cut through the bull and identify what is most important in these hours of decision.

Mikva has stirred the hornet's nest. His words got Politico's Ben Smith out of bed and on the phone with Chicago. Now hear this:

The transition communications director, Dan Pfeiffer, says Obama adviser Abner Mikva didn't speak for the campaign in a Times story that went online this evening, in which Mikva appeared to set an almost impossibly high bar for approving Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State....

A Democrat who saw the quotes suggested Mikva's words were Obama's way of walking back the suggestion that Senator Clinton could serve as secretary of state.

But Pfeiffer, asked if Mikva spoke for the campaign, responded, "no."

Mr. President-elect: You said, on November 7, that in making cabinet appointments you "would not be so rushed that you end up making mistakes."

Like so many of those here, below, at the grassroots base that refuse to believe the noise machine that seeks to demoralize us and make a lie of your own statement, if - and we say "if" because we have never believed the noise machine's spin, and that is why you are president-elect today - but if you are at all persuaded by the pressures upon you turn your foreign policy over to a media freak show, we invoke the immortal words of Oliver Cromwell to the Church of Scotland in 1650 when it sought alliance with the Crown: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."

Few are the voices - like the brave and wise Abner Mikva - with the wisdom and courage to stand up to the sycophants being rolled at present by the Mighty Wurlitzer!

Among us are David Ignatius, who writes in the Washington Post:

"The game changer in foreign policy is Barack Obama himself. Traveling in Europe earlier this month, I was stunned by the excitement he has aroused. The day after the election, the French newspaper "Le Monde" carried a cartoon atop its front page that showed Obama surfing a red, white and blue wave. Above him, it said: "Happy New Century!" You can sense the same enthusiasm around the world -- in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia. Even among the followers of radical groups, such as Hamas and the Taliban, Obama has inspired a sense of change and opportunity.

"Given this ferment, the idea of subcontracting foreign policy to Clinton -- a big, hungry, needy ego surrounded by a team that's hungrier and needier still -- strikes me as a mistake of potentially enormous proportions. It would, at a stroke, undercut much of the advantage Obama brings to foreign policy. And because Clinton is such a high-visibility figure, it would make almost impossible (at least through the State Department) the kind of quiet diplomacy that will be needed to explore options."

As Ignatius demonstrates, there are cases when what seems like and addition turns out to subtract from the overall sum of riches.

And Ken Silverstein with his Five Reasons Hillary Clinton should not be Secretary of State:

"The Clinton style of management-for example, pitting one faction of staff against another-would be a disaster at the State Department. Just look at how well it worked on the campaign trail."

And Justin Raimundo of antiwar.com:

"Hillary opposed every significant peace initiative he put forward during the campaign, including a timetable to get us out of Iraq and direct negotiations with our adversaries. She derided this last - and very encouraging - stance as ‘naïve' and ‘dangerous.' Is this the person who will now be expected to take the lead in facilitating those talks?"

And since when have Raimundo and Marty Peretz been on the same page on any matter? Heed and listen:

"There have been so many Hillary Clintons that I suspect that none was authentic... I believe Barack is playing with fire."

You may not believe any of those people (I often disagree with some of them, but each of their words rings true in this case), and you may not believe me. We don't know yet if you do or not, and we will await the word from your lips before presuming anything. But surely you cannot ignore the words of the national treasure that is Judge Abner Mikva.

There are better uses and positions for someone of the undeniable talent of Senator Clinton in your cabinet, or even on the Supreme Court, but the discretion and diplomacy required of the next Secretary of State to undo the grave messes already created cannot, should not, must not be placed in the hands of someone who - even if it is through little or no fault of her own - is a magnet for the kind of media circus that the mere suggestion of her appointment has drawn already.

Do not wake up on January 21 - or soon after - with the words of the great Abner Mikva ringing in your ears, lamenting that you did not heed them when you could:

"It's more than a legal problem - there are ethical problems and appearance problems."

No Drama, Mr. President-elect, at this hour of the first crisis of your presidency-elect. Ethics matter, even when they do not play to the crowd, especially at those moments when few have the fortitude to consider them important and fight for them.

Do the right thing, Mr. President-elect. And in the absence of other voices that so far shrink from their public duties at this hour of moral crisis, I bid you: Good night. And good luck.

By Al Giordano

While pundits speculate on Obama's choice for Secretary of State (and there's some considerable backpedaling going on from yesterday's media fart) here's something for all sides to chew on... some hard historical data on how long they last.

President George W. Bush began in 2001 with high profile and popular Secretary of State in Colin Powell... who in in the beginning of Bush's second term in 2005 was replaced by Condoleezza Rice.

President Bill Clinton began in 1993 with an experienced State Department hand in Warren Christopher (who had twice briefly served in as acting secretary under President Carter)... who at the beginning of Clinton's second term was replaced by Madeleine Albright.

President George H. W. Bush served only one term beginning in 1989 and his good buddy James Baker lasted most of until August of 1992 (during the unsuccessful reelection campaign). Lawrence Eagleberger replaced him.

President Ronald Reagan began his term in 1981 with former presidential campaign rival Alexander Haig as Secretary of State. But after 18 months Haig realized that his wish for Kissinger-like powers (his mentor and predecessor had basically run foreign policy during President Nixon's weakest years and during President Ford's caretaker presidency) was not-to-be and Haig resigned in disgust. He was replaced by George Schultz.

President Jimmy Carter began his term in 1977 nominating Cyrus Vance as Secretary of State. Three years into the term Senator Edmund Muskie replaced him.

President Gerald Ford inherited Henry Kissinger as Secretary of State from President Nixon in 1974, but only served two years as president.

President Richard Nixon began his term in 1969 with William Rogers as Secretary of State. Nine months into his second term - too embattled to govern - Nixon replaced him with Henry Kissinger and essentially let him run US foreign policy.

Secretary of State Dean Rusk was the last Secretary of State to survive two terms (and two presidents: Kennedy and Johnson, from 1961 to 1969). However, his legacy is disgraced by his role in the Vietnam War.

President Dwight Eisenhower appointed John Foster Dulles as Secretary of State in 1953. Dulles lasted six years and then was replaced by Christian Herter.

President Harry Truman had three Secretaries of State over eight years, from 1945 to 1953. President Franklin Roosevelt had two over 13 years, so on and so forth...

I'll add that the only one of them that had a clue about human rights was Cyrus Vance, who, years prior, as undersecretary of defense had urged President Johnson to pull US troops out of Vietnam.

So what'll it be Mr. President-elect?

A Vance?

Or a Haig?

Also: Don't miss Field Hand Allan Brauer's diary at The Narcosphere about what's next after Proposition 8.

By Al Giordano

The speculation over Senator Hillary Clinton as a possible Secretary of State in the Obama administration did not begin - as many are reporting - with Andrea Mitchell's report yesterday on NBC, based, she said, on "two Obama advisors."

(Obama has more than 700 titled advisors on foreign policy alone. There's good reason why they received a memo that instructed "do not under any circumstances speak to the press." You can't shoot a cannon ball up Pennsylvania Avenue these days without hitting two or three of them, but that doesn't put them in the loop, and the ones that are in the loop aren't talking to Andrea Mitchell or anybody in the press about inside information.)

No, it was not Mitchell that first floated this Hindenburg balloon. It was former Clinton White House aide (and reliable media spinner for all agendas Clinton) George Stephanopoulos on who first dropped HRC's name for Foggy Bottom last week. ABC's Jake Tapper reminds:

George Stephanopoulos reported Clinton's name being in the mix last week on Good Morning America

The whole thing is a media freak show being served up by members of the Clinton factions in the Democratic party and obliged by a national media (some of them also Clinton noisemakers) in search of a story. The speculation is not because Senator Clinton wants the job, but because her people so desperately want to muddy the waters and throw up a roadblock to either New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson or Massachusetts Senator John Kerry - two of the leading contenders - serving in the post, whom they consider turncoats for having endorsed Obama vs. Clinton earlier this year.

After Richardson backed Obama, Clinton advisor James Carville called him a "Judas."

Kerry's earlier endorsement of Obama likewise brought out the knives:

"And he was dead to us," said one prominent Clinton supporter who is, in his words, "not authorized to trash Kerry on the record."

"Aren't Two Cabinet Posts Enough?"

The backbiting last Spring was particularly vicious against Richardson:

"Look, I think that everyone has their endorsers," said senior Clinton strategist Mark Penn, adding - with a little huff - "I think New Mexico is a state that, actually, we won."

"The time that he could have been effective has long since passed," he continued. "I don't think it is a significant endorsement in this environment."

...The AP reported that President Clinton at one point angrily asked Richardson, "What, isn't two cabinet posts enough?" Richardson was energy secretary under Clinton and U.S. ambassador the to U.N.

Richardson appeared on CNN this afternoon and was asked to recall his conversation with Clinton over his decision to endorse Obama. "Well, let's say it was a difficult conversation. But, you know, I resent the fact that the Clinton people are now saying that my endorsement is too late because I only can help with Texans - with Texas and Hispanics, implying that that's my only value. You know, that's typical of some of his advisers that kind of turned me off."

And now you see the New York media-centric Clinton noise machine setting up the spin essentially to screw Obama whichever way he goes:

Analyst Paul Light of New York University's John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress said picking Clinton would mean Obama was serious about reaching across the party divide.

On the other hand, he said: "To put her in the competition with several others and pick somebody other than Hillary Clinton after you've floated her name is to have a repeat of the spring and summer division and raise questions about Obama's seriousness about healing the division within the party."

(ABC's Tapper quoted another member of the noise machine: "'Clinton is the gold standard around the world,' said Chris Lehane...")

The US Department of State's budget for FY 2009 is $11.4 billion dollars.

What makes anybody think that somebody that so mismanaged her presidential campaign and its finances - still millions in debt - is going to be tapped to manage an 11 billion dollar budget with Embassies across the globe?

President-elect Obama is going to meet, in Chicago, on Monday with Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham: the same courtesy he's reportedly given Senator Clinton. Shall we read into it that one of them will become Secretary of State? (No, we won't, because their people in the media won't be pushing such rumors.)

The conflicts of interest of former President Bill Clinton and his Clinton Global Initiative - a "charity" with a $208 million dollar surplus, undisclosed donors, many of them foreign - signify that before Senator Clinton could hold the post of Secretary of State, Bill Clinton and Terry McAuliffe would have to disband their own "shadow state department" that is the Clinton Global Initiative.

As Matthew Yglesias asked aloud in the LA Times last year:

What's more, presidential foundations -- unlike political campaigns -- can accept contributions from foreign citizens and even foreign governments. So, although Hillary Clinton is barred from cashing a $100 check from David Beckham, on the theory that he might be attempting to undermine U.S. sovereignty (or force decent Americans to play soccer), Bill is free to have his annual meeting co-sponsored by the country of Oman, whose interests surely don't overlap 100% with those of the U.S.

The real issue here is that the conflict of interest created by the Clinton Global Initiative rules out Senator Clinton for Secretary of State. The Obama job application form is very specific about unearthing potential conflicts by spouses and "family members."

Does anybody really believe that Obama will say to all his job applicants that there's a double standard, one set of requirements for them and another for the Clintons?

The Obama administration-in-waiting has now pushed back a little bit against the freak show:

Senior officials with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team said late Thursday that Sen. Hillary Clinton would be an asset to the new administration, but declined to confirm reports she was under consideration for secretary of state.

All this grating and annoying noise is able to occur because the national media is thirsty for a story, any story, to make itself relevant to the transition.

The saddest of all the spin yesterday came in how Keith Olbermann on MSNBC "took one for the team" in order to bolster the credibility of his network's Andrea Mitchell and her vague report:

That’s a far cry from Keith’s greatest shining moment, last May, when he spoke of all the things Senator Clinton has said that can be forgiven “but this we cannot forgive.” View it and weep for the state of the media in 2008:

The freak show is not about putting a Clinton into the State Department.

It's an effort by the vindictive Clinton organization to stop Richardson or Kerry from serving in that post.

And it has the effect of underscoring why either of them would be so far superior to Senator Clinton to effectively turn the page on US foreign policy.

By Al Giordano

President-elect Barack Obama announces he'll resign from the US Senate as of Sunday, with these words:

"It has been one of the highest honors and privileges of my life to have served the people of Illinois in the United States Senate.  In a state that represents the crossroads of a nation, I have met so many men and women who've taken different journeys, but hold common hopes for their children's future.  It is these Illinois families and their stories that will stay with me as I leave the United States Senate and begin the hard task of fulfilling the simple hopes and common dreams of all Americans as our nation's next President."

In addition to the many reasons to want to focus on the executive job ahead (and not get mangled in the final weeks of the current Democratic caucus in the upper branch; the Lieberman conundrum to be voted on Tuesday and other sticky wickets), there's another reason for the move: It allows Illinois' next US Senator (to be appointed by the state's Democratic governor) to get a step up on seniority over the incoming class of two Udalls, a Shaheen, a Warner, a Hagan, a Merkley, probably a Begich, quite possibly a Franken and maybe even a Martin in the Democratic caucus.

There's all kinds of speculation over who will be appointed, with an eye toward reelection in 2010. US Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. clearly wants it. Some Democrats worry that his family name will make it more difficult for Democrats to hold the seat in a statewide vote. Obama best friend Valerie Jarrett has taken herself out of the running. Keep an eye on US Rep. Jan Schakowsky (in the photo above), and, really, in terms of sheer legislative talent and conscience she'd fast become a major player in the Senate.

The understandable suggestion that Obama's exit from the Senate leaves the body without a single African-American puts a responsibility on embattled Gov. Rod Blagojevich to appoint a new senator of that demographic may be eased somewhat by the following two-step: The announcement of Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts as the next Secretary of State followed by an immediate announcement by Gov. Deval Patrick of the Bay State that he'll seek Kerry's seat. (In Massachusetts, Mitt Romney's former governorship gave the Democratic state legislature the willies over a possible senate appointment, and stripped the governor of appointing powers: instead, a special election would be called in 150 days.)  However, Obama's having moved the Illinois process forward by so many weeks makes it unlikely that those two steps could occur before Blagojevich makes his call. And there's no guarantee that Patrick would win his party primary in Massachusetts if he did seek the post.

(Just to get yer brains spinning: A similar set of musical chairs could occur later down the line with an appointment to the US Supreme Court of US Senator Hillary Clinton and a subsequent self-appointment by New York Gov. David Paterson.)

Whomever gets the Illinois seat will now move six, seven, eight, or nine steps ahead in the seniority line which will pay off in better committee appointments and a faster track to chairmanships, Obama's parting gift to the Land of Lincoln.

Meanwhile: Fieldhand Suzy Shure sends in this very funny joke:

One sunny day in late January, 2009 an old man approached the White House from Across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he'd been sitting on a park bench.

He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."

The Marine looked at the man and said, "Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here."

The old man said, "Okay", and walked away.'

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."

The Marine again told the man, "Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here."

The man thanked him and, again, just walked away.

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U.S. Marine, saying "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."

The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I've told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don't you understand?"

The old man looked at the Marine and said, "Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it."

The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, "See you tomorrow, Sir."

Update: Make that a possible ten steps ahead in line for the next Illinois senator: Joe Biden will at some point be replaced in his Delaware seat by an appointee from the state's current or pending Democratic governor, depending on when he makes the leap.

By Al Giordano

We went to Wisconsin on October 23. The youngster in this video, J.D. Stier, stood up and said that after Election day he would send out an email and begin organizing the president the day after the vote.

He kept his word.

I think that the thing I like best about this video is that I'm not in it, and that means that the struggle has its own roots and is growing on its own accord.

Here's a flashback from three weeks ago (can you believe that it was an election ago?). And you can see J.D. make some promises, and then comply with them:

And from the first video, you can see the sprouting of the seeds that you've already begun to harvest in Wisconsin.

So many states. So little time.

Coming soon to your city or town? Everything is possible now. Please don't drop the ball at this moment in history. What they're doing in Madison, you can do where you live. It would be political malpractice not to do it.

Update: Micah Sifry of TechPresident.com - who joined us in Chicago last week - will be part of a panel on Thursday, November 20 in Washington DC: 2008: A Great Web Campaign? Or the Greatest? Perhaps some DC area Field Hands could report it for us?