Tilt the Scale Left: Hillary Clinton for SCOTUS? ( photo credit: David Boyle in DC)

Ugh… (and not because I am anti Clinton…I think she would throw herself into the job and make an excellent justice).

The Utah Republican, a high-ranking GOPer on the Senate Judiciary Committee, implied that Clinton could be a strong nominee.

“I even heard the name Hillary Clinton today, and that would be an interesting person in the mix,” Hatch said on the “Today Show.”

“I happen to like Hillary Clinton, I think she’s done agood job for the Democrat Secretary of State’s position. And I have high respect for her, and think a great deal of her.”

via Hatch mentions Clinton’s name for SCOTUS – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.

I think its best that Clinton remain Secretary of State for the duration of the Obama Administration’s first term and into the beginning of a second possible term. There is too much in the world hinging on effective, cohesive US diplomatic engagement to pull a principal out of the cabinet if it can be avoided.

In addition, as moderate as the Clintons have been, nominating Secretary Clinton may just set off the right wing base and unfounded grass roots outrage into an unnecessarily protracted confirmation battle.

Before some wing nut complains that Secretary of State Clinton made a statement about the Earthquake in Haiti faster than President Obama made about the failed Christmas Day attack?

Krugman discusses the differences between candidates Obama and Clinton.

But that says more about the complainers than it does about Obama himself. If you actually paid attention to the substance of what he was saying during the primary, you realized that

(a) There wasn’t a lot of difference among the major Democratic contenders

(b) To the extent that there was a difference, Obama was the least progressive

Now it’s true that many progressives were ardent Obama supporters, with their ardency mixed in with a fair bit of demonization of Hillary Clinton.

via The WYSIWYG president – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com.

I agree with Krugman on the point that many folks simply ignored some of Obama’s key policy points in the 2008 campaign and got swept up with hope-y change-y t-shirts and crying and hugging strangers.

I don’t think those people are the net roots for the most part. I think the problem with the net roots is that they forgot the limitations were never the 50+ senate caucus. It was always the swing votes in the opposition party to get to 60. George W. Bush had more Blue Dog Democrats willing to endorse all of his major first term initiatives without any compromise. People say his cunning got George W. Bush everything he wanted, I would say it was Nixon’s cunning that created the Southern Strategy and Reagan’s american chauvinism that compounded that and created the moderate as right of center Blue Dog Democrat. Post-9/11 political climate was a perfect environment to  shame Blue Dog and Hawk Democrats into knee jerk votes. If we were unhappy with what Democrats did in the senate from 2000 to 08, it should be painfully obvious that the Senate Democrats didn’t demand adequate concessions in exchange for their cooperation with George W. Bush’s platform and agenda.

To be fair, Clinton could have been expected to be  more progressive than Obama concerning health care and Women’s rights. It doesn’t mean a Clinton white house would be as close to getting a bill passed. On many other issues, I would doubt she would be more progressive from her slightly more conservative voting record and working affiliations as a Senator. Clinton was one of the Democrats that voted for a pre-authorized Iraq war. It was baffling at the time and Clinton’s explainations (I didn’t read the NIE and I trusted President Bush’s evidence) were both unacceptable. In addition Clinton’s deep relation with the”New Democrat” (read left of center, right of center left) DLC can not be ignored. Nor should her comments about creating a protective umbrella around all middle east nations vs Iran.

In addition, a candidate is policies and practice.

Also despite the “Obama the Arrogant” meme, Clinton’s campaign was the one built on brazen, reckless arrogance. Clinton pegged herself “inevitable” and proceeded to undervalue Iowa and the various state by state delegate rules. She had no long term branding strategy for her campaign and was struggling to find her footing well past Super Tuesday. In addition she burned through campaign cash at an alarming rate with wasteful spending. All of this would have been needed for a general campaign push. It was an awful way to start a bid for the presidency after Gore and Kerry campaigns and eight years of George W. Bush.

What we saw is what we got, but it wasn’t the “least progressive” candidate.