Does High Drama Clinton Serve ‘No Drama Obama’?

 Drudge’s Headline Brings Pause for Thought

A story in the International Herald Tribune earned the following headline on Drudge Report:

Now, if you read the entire story, you find that most of the piece is about President-elect Barack Obama’s and Sen. Hillary Clinton’s relationship and how it mellowed after their primary fight.  Drudge, though has shown an uncanny ability to pull the bothersome thread from the garment in the past, many times before the rest of the media catches up.  When I saw this headline, I thought, “Oh no, shadow government, Barack’s been too magnanimous and he’s going to pay for it.”

I read the story and Drudge’s headline – and therefore judgement on what the real story is – comes down to this:

By this past Thursday, when Obama reassured Clinton that she would have direct access to him and could select her own staff as secretary of state, the wooing was complete.

In the context of the reporting, it sounds pretty innocuous.  Drudge doesn’t think so, he thinks this is the story.  We won’t know if he’s right for months. But another nugget buried further in the piece is pure Clinton politics and may support why some remain worried about Hillary Clinton as one of Barack’s closest associates:

Clinton, it should be said, was herself diligent in advertising how hard she was working for the man who defeated her. When announcing her appearances, her press office included tallies of how many events she had held for Obama, and in how many states. At some rallies, organizers would distribute “Hillary Sent Me” buttons, as if Clinton was being magnanimous by “sending” her followers to vote for Obama.

You see, Bill and Hillary Clinton have never been ones for humility.  Part of the power and appeal of Barack Obama is that he is cabable of humility.  The mere fact that he surrounds himself with strong intellects and encourages robust policy debate and divergent opinions in his decision-making process is testament to this.  At the end of the day, Obama is still a man who ran for president and won and that qualifies his ego as one of the larger among us.  The reason why he appears to be not cut from the same political cloth as so many others with presidential-sized egos is that he is even more in tune to what’s going on around him.  He is self-aware and world-aware in a way that tempers the ego.

Can the same be said for either Hillary or Bill Clinton? 

I don’t want to ignore the contributions either the former president or the current senator have made to our country.  I will be only cautiously optimistic for now on whether Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State will work for America and the world.

Along with the Clintons’ contributions came colossal drama.  Conditions are too critical and the stakes here and abroad are too high in present times for drama.  I hope the rest of the ‘No Drama Obama’ team has considered this.