My unvarnished views

Nancy asked me what I thought of Hillary Clinton's appointment as Secretary of State, and of the impact of the Mumbai massacres on President-elect Obama's future policies towards terrorism.

Hillary: oddly enough, this may be a good appointment (especially if the alternative might have been Dick Holbrooke or Wes Clark - heaven knows they've wanted the job for years). She demonstrated toughness during the campaign, and that's a very good quality in a Secretary of State. The irony, of course, is that her two biggest campaign lies were about Bosnia and Northern Ireland. I would hope that her record of veracity will improve once she's dealing full time with faraway places. She will have 'Bill eruptions' from time to time, just as she did on the campaign trail, leaving the rest of us respond with either embarrassment or sick humor. However, on the bright side, Bill's ability to lobby and accept money from unsavory sources may be hampered by the increased limelight.

Obama and terrorism: oddly enough, there may be a little sliver of silver on the bottom of the very dark cloud in Mumbai. I remember a tape of Obama, early in the campaign, saying that the root cause of terrorism was poverty. The Mumbai attacks certainly do not support that assessment. Also, friends and acquaintances like Rashid Khalili, former PLO spokesman and now Middle East expert at Columbia, have presumably told Obama that the root cause of terrorism is Israel; again, the events in Mumbai should poke a large hole in that theory. Finally, Obama has been forced to take sides; not between Pakistan and India, but between terrorists and everyone else. Hopefully, he understands that U.S. interests lie with helping democrats in India, not excusing terrorist thugs and killers.