I have heard some speculation about why Obama would want Hillary Clinton out of the Senate. The speculation was she was block his health-care plans, and he wanted her out of the way.
Now, Obama will be her boss. I wonder who will boss who?-------Trickyvikki
From top rival to top aide: The Clinton-Obama detente
By Elisabeth Bumiller
New York Times
Posted: 11/22/2008 05:50:21 PM PST
WASHINGTON — The thaw in the resentful relationship between the most powerful woman in the Democratic party and her younger male rival began at the party's convention this summer, when Sen. Hillary Clinton gave such a passionate speech supporting Sen. Barack Obama that his top aides leapt out of their chairs backstage to give her a standing ovation as she swept past.
Strategic move
Obama, who was in the first steps of what would become a strategic courtship, called afterward to thank her. By then, close aides to Clinton said, she had come to respect the campaign Obama had run against her. At the least, she knew he understood like no one else the brutal strains of their epic primary battle.
By Thursday, when Obama reassured Clinton that as secretary of state she would have direct access to him and could select her own staff, the wooing was complete.
"She feels like she's been treated very well in the way she's been asked," said a close associate of Clinton, who like others asked for anonymity because the nomination won't be formally announced until after Thanksgiving.
Few are predicting this new relationship born of mutual respect and self-interest will grow into a tight bond between the new president and the woman who will be the public face of his foreign policy, though some say it is not impossible. They argue that a close friendship between the two powerful officials is useful but not essential, and isn't a predictor of the success of the nation's top diplomat.
Intellectual bond
While James Baker was extraordinarily close to President George H.W. Bush and is widely considered one of the most successful recent secretaries of state, Dean Acheson was not a friend of President Harry Truman, and Henry Kissinger did not particularly like President Richard Nixon.
"Two of the nation's greatest secretaries of state in the modern period, Dean Acheson and Henry Kissinger, were not personally close but were intellectually bonded to their presidents," said Walter Isaacson, the author of a biography of Kissinger and the co-author, with Evan Thomas, of "The Wise Men," a book about America's postwar foreign policy establishment. "I think that Obama and Clinton could form a perfect partnership based on respect for each other's view of the world."
In the Obama-Clinton relationship, advisers say, the relatively smooth nature of their talks about the secretary of state job indicate that both, for now, have a working chemistry.
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