"Secretary of Defense -- John McCain," proposes Daniel W. Drezner, even as The Cool Blue Blog and Rob A of Fine? Why Fine? are thinking Vice President. Cool Blue is concerned "our Dick" isn't "up to another four years in Washington, physically." Says Professor Drezner:
It's worth remembering that back in 2000, John McCain was the preferred candidate for a lot of prominent neocons. Here's a way to snuff out all that Kerry-McCain mumbo-jumbo and make McCain's star quality work for the Republicans. Plus, he knows a thing or two about defense matters.
McCain is too full of himself for VP. He would never settle for Number Two. Give him a cabinet post to run with. We think he's going for State, as we blogged here yesterday, but Defense is equally plausible. The Professor, meanwhile, is dreaming of State for someone we've never heard of [You've never heard of people lots of times. -- ed]:
Secretary of State -- Kenneth Dam. Dam was Deputy Secretary of State under George Shultz and Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under Paul O'Neill. To my knowledge, no one in DC has ever said a bad word about him. I'm going to go out on a limb and say he's got sufficient experience for the job.
Dam! Gotta read up on Dam. Meanwhile, Dapper Dan dreams of Radiant Rudy for Homeland Security:
Secretary of Homeland Security -- Rudoplh Guliani. If you think the intelligence community has problems, consider this monstrosity of a department for a second. This job is much tougher than DCI -- at least the CIA has some sense of esprit de corps. DHS is a conglomeration of smaller agencies that have been discarded by other departments. What's needed here is a centralizer, someone who can meld an awkward organizational chart into something resembling a functional bureaucracy. I think Guliani fits that mold.
We're inclined to disagree with the estimable Professor on that one big time. Like McCain, Giuliani is too big for those shoes. As for who should be GW's second-term Secretary of Defense, we think Drezner commenter Matthew has it just right:
I agree with you.
Rumsfeld is a great SecDef and will not be replaced so long as he wants the job.
But I have a hard time seeing McCain as a Secretary of State. I mean what diplomatic skills does he have? He doesn't appear to be very diplomatic to me. OTOH, Rumsfeld cleaned out Defense, Ashcroft cleaned out Justice, perhaps McCain is just the guy to purge the liberal elements from State.
Administrations come and go, but the career bureaucrats are the people who really run the government. Over time, the perspective of the government become that of the dominant perspective of the career bureaucrats. Justice was filled with "liberal" bureaucrats and Ashcroft purged them.
State continues to be filled with "liberal" bureaucrats and Powell has not, or does not want to, purge them.
So maybe Bush does want someone who can "realign" State. I have no doubt that McCain could do that.
Putting neoCons in control of state would be a real "legacy".
Posted by: CoolBlue | June 20, 2004 at 07:01 PM