Hill and Dale

Let's look beyond this far-eastern fire drill of the Republican primary ... to this fall when the election is in full swing.  Many believe that, if the GOP has gotten its act together by then, The Barry might well have to switch horses and put Hillary Clinton on his ticket as his Veep ... retiring Biden to that stud farm called the State Department.  This move would be to bolster his re-election chances with "the devil you know" popularity of Hillary ... attracting those voters who believe she was denied her crown last time around.

Now, apart from the fact that she has bluntly stated multiple times that she is done with politics, Hillary might well be tempted with such an offer ... as it could present a greased slide into the White House in 2016.  And, besides, to my continued amazement, most media pundits believe that she has done a bang-up job at Foggy Bottom.  So, I think a quick review of her record there is now in order:

- The State Department recently put the kibosh on the Keystone pipeline from Canada (see: Falling Keystone)
- We reopened our embassy in Syria last spring just in time to watch Assad slaughter his people.  We may now be embarrassed into reclosing it (see: The Cable Story)
- We totally botched the Egyptian uprisings last spring (see: The Gong Show)
- We sat on our hands when the Iranian street rose up against their oppressive regime in 2009
- Our troop pullout from Iraq has been a clumsy mess, leaving this country to slip back into secular warfare
- Our relations with Pakistan are at the breaking point
- Iran is about ready to produce its first atomic weapon and the United States has stated no coherent strategy to deal with this contingency
- In general, we appeared to be bystanders in the Arab spring
- We seem to be quite timid when dealing with China and its many military and economic threats
- The Euro-zone bogey man is afoot and the United States is hiding under the covers

Need I go on any further?  (There's lots more.)  Yes, one could say that most of these failings are Obama-inspired, but where was Hillary when these decisions were made?  Yes, she has been good at the optics ... willing to travel to these hot spots, pose for pictures, and utter some platitudes, but she has not put forward any overarching policies of her own to deal with the world's turmoil.  ("Reset" is hardly an overarching strategy ... I don't even know what it means.) To me, she appears to shrink from these challenges.  And, God forbid, Biden tries to fill her shoes.  He clearly would screw things up even more ... even if the "San Francisco Giants" win the Super Bowl.