just, someone explain to me the rationale behind this. because i am not getting it.

Hey, or we could stop making Secretary of State a pity job and take diplomacy more seriously, y/y?

NYT: Clinton Decision Holding Up Other Obama Choices

Speaking of which: If Mrs. Clinton does not end up at State, then Jim Steinberg, the former deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration, is at the top of the list for the national security adviser job. Mr. Steinberg could even get the job if Mrs. Clinton takes Secretary of State, Democratic aides say, although some consideration might be given to whether Mr. Steinberg has the heft to keep Mrs. Clinton’s outsized personality in check.

When 11,000 pages of Mrs. Clinton’s public schedule as first lady were released back in March, Mr. Craig said they showed that Mrs. Clinton was out of the loop when critical foreign policy decisions were made and that her trips abroad were largely ceremonial.

“The fact is, and this was established by the White House schedules, that she did not attend NSC meetings or routinely meet with the Secretary of State or the National Security Adviser,” said Mr. Craig, who was also a senior State Department official during the Clinton administration. “She did not routinely get briefed by the intelligence community, and there is no evidence that she participated or asserted herself in any of the crises that took place during the eight years of the Clinton presidency.”

Ms. Rice, for her part, questioned the link between being First Lady and acquiring foreign policy knowledge. No question, it would be tough to put those three together at the helm of any Obama foreign policy team.

i don't think the army knows what wicca is.

NYT: Soldier With Mental History Suspected in Attacks

A Fort Carson soldier and war veteran charged in the murder and sexual assault of a woman in Colorado last month faces accusations that he also raped a 14-year-old girl and sexually assaulted a third woman, an internal Army document states.

The document, the Commander’s Report on the suspect, Specialist Robert H. Marko, also raises serious questions about his mental state during his time at Fort Carson beginning in late 2006 and whether he should have deployed to Iraq in 2007.

It was common knowledge among his commanding officers and fellow soldiers, the document states, that Specialist Marko, who is being held without bond, believed he was an “alien dinosaur-like creature, and that he would transform from his human form into his Black Raptor form on his 21st birthday — 13 Oct 08.”

He told his superiors that he had joined the Army to “get combat experience — something that he viewed as important to his Black Raptor identity.”

Specialist Marko’s MySpace page was replete with his dark impulses. “I’m becoming a true Black Raptor already,” he wrote in his profile. “I’m becoming a cold-hearted killer and can kill without mercy or reason.”

After joining the Army, his “unusual beliefs” in his Black Raptor alter-ego resulted in him being referred for psychiatric evaluations three times. Ultimately, the beliefs came to be viewed by his mental health evaluators as a religion, of sorts, like Wicca.