Appointments Beget Appointments

The dually-sworn president prescribes truth, light and transparency as the therapy necessary to rehabilitate our nation's domestic image. Meanwhile, the new Secretary of State promises to conduct "robust diplomacy" and to implement similar goodwill PR in her attempt to reverse what both she and her boss perceive to be our tarnished image abroad.

Let's revisit Sen. Hillary Clinton's March 17, 2008 campaign speech at George Washington University regarding an official trip she and Bill took to the Balkans in 1996 in which she said...

"...I remember landing [in Bosnia] under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

Perhaps Hillary's first mission should be a return to the Balkans where she can explain and/or apologize for this and other exaggerations of her importance during her unelected, un-appointed White House career. Only then will the First Lady of Pants Suits be qualified to begin making America right with the world again.

Hillary's fellow "lawyer" Caroline Kennedy, having proved herself to be the dimmest of wits in an
out-of-nowhere attempt to be appointed to Hillary's vacated US Senate seat, New York's Governor David Paterson ultimately selected yet another lady lawyer to wear the pants suit for New Yorkers in the US Senate.

Kirsten Gillibrand, recently elected to a second term in Congress as representative of upstate Albany and its surrounding rural Capital District counties, was selected today by Paterson shortly after Ms. Kennedy submitted a mysterious midnight withdrawal from consideration that freed him to find a better qualified replacement for Hillary without the criticism that would have come had he rejected Caroline.

Kennedy's press release cited "personal reasons" -- perhaps the worsening of her Uncle Ted's brain tumor-related illness -- but several credible reporters are about to release scandalous information that could include allegations of resume exaggeration, tax evasion, a nanny documentation problem and even an adulterous affair with the publisher of the New York Times. It could be any or all of the above.

Rep. Gillibrand just happens to be my own congressional representative. We live in the Catskill Mountains near the Hudson River Valley about 40 miles from New York's capital.

Despite reports that Gillibrand is considered one of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats because she voted against the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill and supports gun owner rights (this district is prime deer hunting territory and attracts large numbers of hunting-related tourists) I can tell you first hand that her list of accomplishments is extremely short and that New York Conservatives consider her to be a liberal lightweight.

Furthermore, Gillibrand was a Bill Clinton appointee, serving as an official in the Housing and Urban Development Department. Even when the former president refused to campaign for Democrat candidates during the 2006 congressional election he made a special trip to Albany for an hour-long airport photo-op with Gillibrand.

Nonetheless, her upset win over a Republican perennial came not as the result of Bill Clinton's
endorsement but because a police report was leaked just prior to Election Day in which her opponent's wife had called 911 in what appeared to be a domestic violence incident.

The congresswoman's subsequent re-election was surprising considering the release, during the recent campaign, of unflattering, un-liberal news accounts of Gillibrand's history as a Phillip Morris corporate attorney. During that part of her career she had clandestine meetings about the dangers of smoking followed by a public denial that the cigarette maker had any knowledge that their product was linked to cancer.

When it comes to appointments these days, the more Clintonian they are the more appoint-able they are likely to be.

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