Reflections From a Murky Pond

Today, December 1, 2008, President-Elect Barack Obama has officially asked Sen. Hillary Clinton to be his Secretary of State and Sen. Clinton has accepted the appointment pending a successful Senate confirmation hearing.

This is strangely interesting development since Obama has violated the US Constitution by appointing Sen. Clinton as Secretary of State and Sen. Clinton has violated the US Constitution by accepting the position.

Sadly for the principals involved, The second clause of Article 1, Section 6 of the US Constitution forbids Sen. Clinton from being appointed to the office of Secretary of State or any other civil office.

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

– US Constitution
Article 1, Section 6, Clause 2

During the course of Sen. Clinton’s current term in the Senate, the salary for Cabinet officers was increased from $186,600 to $191,300. Said salaries are scheduled to yet again be raised in January 2009. This means that not only Hillary Clinton but all sitting Senate members could or should be considered constitutionally ineligible to serve in Obama’s Cabinet.

This seems a telling faux pas on Obama’s part since he used to practice constitutional law.

Of course Obama is not the first one to run afoul of Article 1, Section 6 of our constitution. Presidents Taft, Nixon, Carter, and H.W. Bush had the same problem when they tried to appoint Cabinet members who were serving in the House or Senate.

They all also weaseled their way around the constitutional strictures by having the appointees’ respective salaries reduced to the levels they had been before their appointees had served in office. This was a move that may have honored the spirit of our Constitution, but clearly violated it’s written mandate.

Let’s put this in perspective though, since there’s some chance that this will become an issue in the blogosphere - if not the Obama-adoring MSM. Obama’s appointment of Sen. Clinton as his Secretary of State is a Constitutional Crisis, but it one we as a nation have dealt with before - far more than once.

This issue may, however, be a harbinger of how Obama will approach the Constitution while President, and may shed some light on how Obama has approached constitutional law in the past.

Alaska’s Governor Sarah, Palin has been chosen by Senator John McCain to be his Vice Presidential nominee and running mate in the 2008 US presidential elections. The vast majority of people - certainly almost all of the Left - believe that Gov. Palin was chosen solely because of her gender. The general assumption among the Democrats is that her nomination was nothing beyond a poorly executed pandering to the die-hard Hillary Clinton supporters who feel so abused and maligned by the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign.

I truly wonder if this was the case. This does not mean that I believe the the GOP is beyond such tactics. It merely means that I do not hold them in such contempt that I believe they would execute any campaign strategy that poorly.

It’s absolutely no secret that McCain wanted Sen. Joe Lieberman as his VP. Lieberman was an politically unacceptable choice though. An ex-Democrat now Independent who ran with Al Gore in the 2000 election wasn’t going to be acceptable to the GOP or their conservative base. McCain had to choose another running mate. That’s where it gets interesting.

Palin based on her political views - especially her hatred of government corruption - was always a fine choice for McCain’s VP.  Much of her - albeit limited - political history shows that she was a good match for the “maverick” McCain. Alas, she was a woman and the GOP could not be expected to accept a female VP candidate. Then along came Hillary and the resulting rather bitter schism within the Democrats. Suddenly a female VP candidate was politically viable.

So the question becomes did McCain choose Palin as his running mate because she was a woman or did he choose her for political positions and cultural views despite or irrespective of her being a woman thanks to Clinton making it palatable to the GOP?

The Left will tell you the reason was the former, but I believe it was the latter.  Palin bring far to much to McCain’s campaign from within the Right and so little from the Left that it’s ridiculous to think that the McCain and the GOP would have chosen her in order to pander to Hillary’s supporters.

On Tuesday night, the second night of the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Sen. Hillary Clinton stood up in front of the crowd of Democrats and delivered a speech. It has generally been hailed as a very good speech.

It was a concession speech!

Clinton never used the word  “concede,” but that is what the speech was all about - Hillary giving up the race and supporting Obama as the Democratic Nominee.

Now the Democrats will have to wait and see if Clinton can manage to sway her supporters. So far the response has been mixed, with some some Clinton supporters seeming willing to support Obama and others somehow seeing this as another example of mysogyny in America.

Any thoughts?