Originally Posted By: the G-man of Zur-En-Arrh
...just to play devil's advocate, let's assume that there are significant policy differences between Obama and Hillary, with Hillary to the right of the president-elect. By picking her either: (a) Obama expects her to come around to his way of thinking (which was, during the campaign, pretty far left on foreign policy); or (b) Obama expects to move to the right, thereby having broke yet-another campaign promise.


Time magazine's Peter Beinart tries to assure fellow left-liberals that this is all just a ploy by Obama:
  • A word of advice: cheer up. It's precisely because Obama intends to pursue a genuinely progressive foreign policy that he's surrounding himself with people who can guard his right flank at home. When George W. Bush wanted to sell the Iraq war, he trotted out Colin Powell--because Powell was nobody's idea of a hawk. Now Obama may be preparing to do the reverse. To give himself cover for a withdrawal from Iraq and a diplomatic push with Iran, he's surrounding himself with people like Gates, Clinton and [National Security Adviser-designate James] Jones, who can't be lampooned as doves