Beware--We Are In For "A More Powerful State Department" (Updated)

Hillary Clinton has big plans:

Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to build a more muscular US State Department, with a bigger budget, high-profile special envoys dispatched to trouble spots and an expanded role in dealing with the global economic crisis, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

The problem of course is that people with muscle tend to make a point of using that muscle; people with a high-profile tend to show it off and make use of any opportunity to enhance it--especially in the Middle East.

We are in for trouble.

UPDATE: Abe Greenwald agrees:

The last things the State Department needs are headliners as envoys. These are people with obsolete solutions to brand new challenges, and their reputations demand that their ideas be given far too-respectful hearings. It’s not that the names being floated for envoy posts carry any particular shame (some, such as Richard Holbrooke, signal great accomplishment); it’s that the State Department runs the risk of becoming a part-time retirement facility for the mellowing DC cocktail set. Assigning envoys from the pre-9/11 universe will deliver us back into a state of complacent vulnerability.

Read his analysis.

Technorati Tag: Hillary Clinton.