The Enlightened Despot

Senator Clinton has been appointed to head one of three Senate working groups on health care reform by Ted Kennedy. This might strike people as a bit odd, considering everyone is certain that she is about to resign from the senate to become Secretary of State. Ben Smith concludes his article on the subject thus: “It looks, however, like Kennedy may need a new chair for his insurance working group.”

This, to me, is a strange thing for Smith to say. Kennedy made this announcement today. I don’t think it’s too insulting to Politico’s sources to say that Kennedy (who endorsed Obama in his run against Clinton, fwiw) is in at least as good a position to know what’s going on with Obama’s appointments. Either this move was purely for show, or the deal isn’t as done as has been reported; Ted Kennedy is unlikely to read about the SoS speculation this afternoon and say “Oh, shit! Guess it’s back to the drawing board…”

The evidence that Hillary is headed for Foggy Bottom is certainly mounting, but there is still plenty of reason to be skeptical. The move still doesn’t make any sense for either Obama or Hillary (in my not-so-humble opinion), no one has named a source in reporting the story, some generally well informed reporters aren’t able to confirm the deal, and now a senior Democratic senator is announcing that she will be doing something about health care - which has always been her issue - which she couldn’t possibly do if the story were accurate.

I may well be wrong about this, and if it turns out that I am, I’ll apologize. But, for now, I’m still not convinced.

UPDATE: Some water thrown on the Secretary Clinton fire by, uh, Ben Smith:

“A lot of the speculation and reporting is out ahead of the facts here,” said the person, who requested anonymity. “She is still weighing this, independent of President Clinton’s work.”

Clinton, the person said, remains deeply “torn” between the possibility of serving in Obama’s cabinet and remaining in the Senate to “help pass health care and work on a broad range of domestic issues.”

That comment jibes with what others close to Clinton have been saying since the Secretary of State chatter began last week: that Clinton is conflicted and the deal far from done, despite screaming headlines in outlets including the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper claiming the offer was made and accepted.

If this is what people close to Clinton have been saying all along, I would expect that to come through a little clearer in Smith’s and others’ reporting on the subject.