"In Ex-President's Global Reach, Pluses, Minuses for a Wife at State"

[ProSense]

One Cabinet Job Would Put Focus On Two Clintons

In Ex-President's Global Reach, Pluses, Minuses for a Wife at State

By Michael D. Shear and Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, November 17, 2008; Page A01

If Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is named the next secretary of state, she and her husband could be positioned to lead a public-private partnership on the global stage unlike any before it, one that experts say would bring with it a host of potential benefits and pitfalls for the new president.

Since leaving the White House, Bill Clinton has used his connections with world leaders to position himself as something akin to the world's philanthropist in chief -- and become rich in the process by collecting huge sums from foreign companies eager to hear him speak.

That arrangement could be complicated, though, by his wife joining the Obama administration, with the prospect of questions about any conflict of interest or attempts to curry influence.

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The choice of Clinton would present other potential problems for Obama. He would be investing his fortunes not only with his former rival for the presidency but also in an outsize figure on the global scene who has been conducting a kind of privately financed foreign policy all his own since leaving office. Obama and the former president have also continued to share a somewhat strained relationship since the end of the Democratic nominating contest.

Bill Clinton's web of personal financial ties and public policy pronouncements about the world's challenges would instantly become a source of possible discord with a new Obama administration as his wife travels the same world circuit as America's official emissary.

"He's a former president of the United States. He's been traveling around the world, and he's got his foundation and a lot of foreign policy efforts going on," said Leon Panetta, Clinton's former chief of staff and now a professor of public policy. "What they will have to obviously be careful of are the potential conflicts that might appear."

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Privatizing foreign policy? Ludicrous.

Seems Bill is being pushed as Hillary's primary qualification for the position.

[tekisui]

1. And, likewise her greatest liability.

It will have the impression of conflict of interest. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I don't see hos they will be able to vet Bill sufficiently.l

[Name removed]

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