COWBOYS, BI-PARTISANSHIP, POWELL, AND HILLARY

NYTIMES/THE CAUCUS:

Hillary’s Secret Weapon: Colin Powell?

By Patrick Healy

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has been talking for some time now about how, if she is elected president, she will ask both Democratic and Republican statesmen to hit the road on her behalf to declare that “bipartisan foreign policy is back” in post-George W. Bush America.

While Mrs. Clinton has pointed to her husband as an emissary, it has been unclear for some time which Republicans she had in mind. But in South Carolina today, speaking to a group of black ministers, Mrs. Clinton dropped a name publicly that she has hinted at privately before.

“I won’t even wait until I’m inaugurated, but as soon as I’m elected I’m going to be asking distinguished Americans of both parties — people like Colin Powell, for example, and others — who can represent our country well, including someone I know very well,” Mrs. Clinton said, according to a Fox News Web report. “Because I want to send a message heard across the world. The era of cowboy diplomacy is over.”

Would Mr. Powell be willing to carry water for Mrs. Clinton, and not-so-subtly rebuke Mr. Bush in the process? While Mr. Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs at the start of the Clinton administration, and served as a negotiator in Haiti for Mr. Clinton, there is no evidence that he is interested in serving Mrs. Clinton.

And how will anti-war Democratic voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and elsewhere feel about Mrs. Clinton’s suggestion that she wants one of the architects of the Iraq war to serve as a goodwill ambassador?

Mr. Powell’s assistant said he was out of the office today but had seen the news report from South Carolina. “He’s not been in touch with Senator Clinton in regards to this, and has no comment,” said his assistant, Peggy Cifrino.

• IF HILLARY WANTS A RETURN TO BI-PARTISAN FOREIGN POLICY ALL SHE AND THE DEMOCRATS HAVE TO DO IS SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT, AND THEY CAN BEGIN RIGHT NOW.

• COLIN POWELL AND HIS DEPUTY/PROTEGE RICHARD ARMITAGE (THE PLAME-NOVAK LEAKER) AND HIS CHIEF AIDE AT THE STATE DEPARTMENT LARRY WILKERSON HAVE ALWAYS BEEN TWO-FACED, DISLOYAL, STATUS QUOISTS - WHO SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN TRUSTED BY BUSH.
  
• BUT THESE ARE QUALITIES WHICH MAKES THEM PERFECT FOR THE CLINTONS.
  

• AS FOR HER CALLING BUSH'S FOREIGN POLICY "COWBOY DIPLOMACY" THIS IS BOTH INCORRECT DESCRIPTION (BECAUSE BUSH HAS EFFECTIVELY USED MULTI-LATERAL DIPLOMACY WITH LIBYA AND NORTH KOREA AND LESS SUCCESSFULLY WITH IRAN), AND A MISUSE OF THE TERM COWBOY: HILLARY USES IT AS IF A "COWBOY" WAS A NEGATIVE OR BAD THING. COWBOYS ARE GOOD THINGS. THEY TAMED THE FRONTIER AND HELPED MAKE AMERICA GREAT.

THOSE WHO DISLIKE COWBOYS HAVE NO PLACE ON THE WHITE HOUSE.