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Obama, Clinton and Machiavelli

Posted by TONY CAMPBELL, Columnist in Politics.
Dec 1st, 2008 | Comments

We have known for weeks that President-elect Obama was going to offer the Secretary of State position to Senator Hillary Clinton. In the official announcement today, Obama has laid those rumors to rest, but has intensified another round of questioning; why would Obama offer this prime post to his formal rival?

As I pondered this question, my thoughts became centered on “The Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli, not on the overused phraseology of “the end justifies the means” but on a little known excerpt I have typed below:

“I will merely say that these men who at the beginning of a new government were enemies, if they are of a kind to need support to maintain their position, can be very easily gained by the prince, and they are the more compelled to serve him faithfully as they know they must by their deeds cancel the bad opinion previously held of them, and thus the prince will always derive greater help from them than from those who, serving him with greater security, neglect his interests.”

In layman’s terms, Machiavelli is saying that Obama will be served faithfully by Hillary Clinton because she has her reputation to mend. It is a win-win; Obama gets a faithful Secretary of State while Hillary recovers any lost ground in public perception because of the long and sometimes ugly primary battle between the two former opponents.

See Mom, I told you that political theory course would come in handy someday.

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DLS

Obama already had health care firmly under his thumb. Clinton is kept overseas frequently now. She might still come back "home" and be VP if Biden were to be replaced eventually. Otherwise, Obama is obviously in control.

And I had to re-read the title of this thread because I was thinking originally of Obama, Clinton, and Matthews, because the last political-gossip news is that Christopher Matthews may be even more of a Democrat than he has been in the media, by running for the Senate (being another celebrity as oft-offputting Al Franken and his Franken-Friends' extra ballots in Minnesota has already been, for this year's election celeb story).

I heard about the Matthews story once or twice including on the Jesse Jackson (Sr.) "Keep Hope Alive" radio show while on the road yesterday, and frankly, I'd rather see Jackson (Sr.; Jr. likely will replace Obama as Illinois Senator) as Senator before Matthews and the latter's much-bigger mouth.

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