My reaction when I first heard that President-Elect Obama was thinking of nominating Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state? A heartfelt, cell-deep, in-my-bones, shiver-inducing cringe.

What, was he nuts? A masochist? A wimp, too conciliatory for his own good? What could possess him to include the junior senator from New York and erstwhile first lady of the United States in his brand spanking new cabinet? 

Not known as either a cheerleader or a team player, Hillary Clinton is a shrewd, ambitious, fierce-willed politician who, during the tortured primary season, not only stepped over the line in berating her worthy opponent, but annihilated the thing, handing the Republicans some of their biggest hammers against Obama, including one statement in which she all but said John McCain would be a better choice than the man from Illinois.

And who can forget her long goodbye?

Why in Tarnation would Obama resurrect that old dynamic? Did it hurt so good or something?

Having had several days to digest what is now foregone, I have returned to my senses, and what my faith has told me all along about Obama: He’s nobody’s dummy, nobody’s lackey and nobody’s schmoo. If he thinks Hillary Clinton should be the country’s top diplomat – and fourth in the line of succession – then, as Sarah Palin would say, by golly gee, I betcha he knows what he’s doin'.

I am relieved to report that as of now, with the nomination a fait accompli, I not only no longer cringe, but actually welcome Hillary Clinton as secretary of state-designate. It took me a while to remember an important quality of hers – something I can vouch for, having known and covered her for more than three decades.

Hillary Clinton, like Obama himself, deplores failure. It is her chief allergy, her kryptonite. It foils her and breaks her, sickens her and debilitates her and haunts her (I don’t know that she has ever gotten over the health care reform debacle of 1993 and ’94). Thus, she is driven to succeed.

What’s behind the drive is pure intrigue. Pride, some deep-seated trauma, a need for adulation and acclaim - who knows?  What’s important is that this person who is about to inherit, literally, a world of trouble gets up every day unhappy about the state of things; spends every waking moment trying to make the world better; paces and dreams and meets and schemes and works to set things right because it’s just not in her to leave things no better than she found them. Why it’s not in her is moot.

If visions of a Nobel Prize for Peace are dancing in her head, that’s a good thing. You have to accomplish something to get one of those. Go for it, Madam Secretary.

Maybe she fancies outshining her husband, who, deservedly or not, had much of the planet wrapped around his little finger and even got Yitzhak Rabin and Yassir Arafat to shake hands in a truly breathtaking moment of world history. If that’s the case, may she radiate like a thousand suns.

Perhaps she envisions a place in the history books as the one – at long last, the one – who brought peace to the Middle East, to sub-Saharan Africa, to Russia and its many little sisters from the old Soviet order. Maybe she will settle turmoil in Latin America, reunite the Koreas and break the tensions in the Balkans.  
 
Although she has only lately become good at politics per se, Hillary Clinton has always been an exceptional public servant – studious, determined, inventive and, unlike some folks she knows, committed from A to Z.  She may .....

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