President-elect Obama must rethink picking Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State immediately. For if he does seriously pick her then he will lose his perfect record as the first President since FDR to not have a woman in his cabinet.
So far he is doing fine. All the picks have been males. Black, white, various religions. Just doing great. They may be from various backgrounds but they all have that important appendage to lead--the one between their legs.
Now the pundits have been touting that Obama needs her there to keep her in line. Yea,too dangerous to be outside. Form her own political power base. And what was that Sam Donaldson said?...better to have someone inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.
But see that doesn't work with Hillary. As a woman that type of analogy doesn't apply since peeing in a direction is not normally (college days off the dorm not withstanding) a female trait. So do I think Obama will actually pick Hillary? In a word NO. I think that Obama is really smart and he and his team figured that Bill would be the stumbling block. So they would talk of the offer, drag it out, make the leaks about how hard it is to get Bill to cooperate and then throw up their hands in exasperation as they finally have to not offer her the job. In the meantime all the other cabinet posts are being offered to non-females. And since they couldn't wait to fill them, it will be Hillary's fault that no women are in the cabinet.
Actually a great plan and I think he will pull it off. And I wish him luck. For as he said in his famous speech he doesn't look like the other guys who were President. But this way he will be like most of them, especially our founding fathers. None of them had women in their cabinets either. Or maybe he can be like his hero (and mine) FDR and have just one as long as it is the most controverial woman around. For you nonhistory buffs its Francis Perkins.
Now before you start blasting me as a troll and putting bunnies or whatever the current picture of the day is let me state this emphatically. I did vote for Obama. I did contribute to his campaign. I believe he will govern well. But I just think that he is going to break the streak for women of gaining ground in the cabinet. We were up to 47% under Bill Clinton. We lost ground under Bush. But if Obama keeps up his picks like he has Bush is gonna look like a banner carrying feminist next to Obama.
And please don't start saying that this is an emergency situation and that these are the best around for that is just insulting. You mean to say there are NO women at ALL to do these jobs? I am not buying it. And no I am not going to wait until his second term. I heard that phrase in 1960 and 1964 and in 1976.
So will Obama join the ranks of the founding fathers and Nixon and Eisenhower? Or will he be the all-inclusive President that I voted for. Time will tell and time is running out.
I hope I am wrong and I want to be proved wrong. But in my heart I don't think I am and that makes me very sad.
Update 1: it is rumored for Napolitano but not confirmed same as Hillary and there is no indication she is taking it so I did check my sources. And just because I have an opinion that differs from yours does not mean my diary is "shitty" sorry but I am entitled to my opinion. Is this not a website where people can give an opinion. I am not touting "conservative" viewpoints just voicing concern that Obama is not going to be "liberal" enough. Isn't that what you all have been doing?
And there are not lots of posts to be named yet. If you look at the leaks etc we are running down to the wire and so far, if you count Napolitano and Hillary that's 2 out of let's say 13 (president can have more or less dependinig on what they want as cabinet level). That's 15%! Women did as well under Nixon and did better under Reagan.
And I am not the only one concerned. For example Emily's List has said:
"It is a continuing vigil until the decisions are made," said Emily's List founder and president Ellen R. Malcolm. "It's a nervous-making time, because you look at the list of people that are in the press and it's obviously a lot of men and a couple of women. . . . The appointments really are the first big signal that the new president is going to pay attention to women in a serious way."
So there is a need to be concerned. I just wanted to bring it out to this forum since no one seemed to notice so far.
Update 2: According to alot of the posters I am just stirring up shit and that nobody is worried about this and nobody is taking this seriously or even talking about it. Also, it's early so I should not worry. Well I hope those posters talk to other groups who discuss women's issues and let them know that they are wrong as well. I have already quoted Emily's List and mentioned NOW but let's add the PBS show "To the Contrary" on November 16th with the following panel:
HOST:
BONNIE ERBE
PANELISTS:
DEL. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D-DC)
GENEVIEVE WOOD, DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC
OPERATIONS, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION
ILANA GOLDMAN, PRESIDENT,
WOMEN'S CAMPAIGN FORUM
SOPHIA NELSON, EDITOR,
POLITICAL INTERSECTION BLOG
They spent quite of bit of time discussing this very issue on the show. Here is the link http://www.pbs.org/... So I am not "way off base" and this is not a "shitty diary" for bringing this up. It is a valid discussion just maybe one that this website does not want to have right now but the rest of the country does.