Good job here with the numbers. I especially like that next-to-last paragraph.

Two fallacies here deserve revelation:

(1)The last 16 years are simply an inchoate lump of time known as 'the past'.
(2)It should be possible - maybe even desirable - to simply jettison that undifferentiated lump completely, and head forward into the future with a whole team of radical neophytes - finally giving an actual meaning to McCain's nonsensical "hide from history" mantra.

It's past time to grow up, people. You won. Be happy with it, it doesn't happen every time. Now you have to govern, and that's a very different thing from winning a campaign.

I'm not angered. May be there are a couple of better choices but she is certainly competent and qualified for the job.

But it's fair to say there is are concerns of a possible fallout. I, for one, have reservations about her ability to work in a team and follow orders.

Having said, I hope both of them build trust. It would be great to see strong friendship between them.

I truly hope their partnership works.

You have a way of conflating incompatible statements into what you think are new truths; they aren't. 'Many' is an imprecise term, 'most' is a imprecise term but has more precise predicates than 'many'. They didn't say most, they said many. You don't really have a point, here.

Thanks for this post. Rec'd.

Well, I am an Obama supporter; and I am indeed angered and somewhat depressed by the appointment of Clinton. Of course, I'm just one guy. And it appears I am in a minority.

I would never say Clinton and the Clintonites are as bad as the foul, authoritarian and torture promoting Bush gang of criminals. But I did oppose her very strongly, for what I believed were good and powerful reasons. And so I'm not happy at all.

I initially expected I would be able to swallow this appointment with stoical resignation as a necessary gesture to political reality. But now that the deed is done, I'm finding it a very bitter pill to swallow.

i dont think its about hillary.

i think people dont trust bill.

Do not let the fringe and/or the punditocracy tell you what reality looks like. Hatred is eating away at their brains.

I'll go farther than you, it's not just "fringe" or "punditocracy." It's the net, where the loudest and the most passionate make for a "virtual reality" that's truly just virtual. (Where this really bugs me is when people say they are better informed than others because they spend a lot of time on blogs, when I see so much evidence of warping of reality through echo chambers.)

Most voters who are not part of the 1/3 conservative part of the population and not part of the population who really really hoped to see a black president above everything else (BTW, I in no way dis that motivation,) liked things about both Obama and Hillary and saw down sides to each of them, too. Hence, they were happy to vote for their primary choice but equally happy to switch to wholehearted support of the primary winner. Passionate Hillarybots vs. Obamabots are an invention of netizens, a kabuki signifying nothing. In my opinion, nearly a year of wasted brains and passions playing kabuki.

Twelve percent disapproval is pretty low. If Obama picked Billy Joe Bob and he had only 12% disapproval, either nobody would notice, or they would praise both the pick and Billy Joe Bob's vast popularity.

Sounds like Clinton-hating to me.

I join Dan in being against this appointment and struggling to simply tolerate it. I don't really care what anyone else chooses to call me as a result of my distaste.

Hillary voted for the Iraq War resolution and so bears responsibility for that miserable war. She also supported that damned war for a few years afterward and simply expressed annoyance that things weren't going well.

Bush expressed the "faulty intelligence" was to blame. I heard the same damned excuses from Hillary. If it isn't a valid excuse for Bush, then it isn't a valid excuse for any damned democrat who voted for it.

The majority of the Democrats in Congress voted against the Iraq War resolution. Hillary voted for it and she was in the majority of Senate Democrats and in the minority amongst Congressional Democrats.

I barely tolerate Biden as VP; I struggle with tolerating Hillary being in daily charge of our foreign policy. She's a hawk in the Albright mode and I don't believe that policy has been a good thing for my country or for the Americans being killed or wounded there or for the Iraqis being killed or wounded there.

I'm trusting that Obama has made the correct call on this and am willing to give him some room.

But I'm really, really tired of ignorant folks making this a "hate" thing instead of a visceral disagreement about the circumstances under which this country goes to war--and about who has responsibility (lissen up, congress) to actually vote for or against the war....here's a hint, it's not the prez.

I am tired of the myth that there was ever a simple up or down vote on the war in Iraq. The resolution was at it's heart a vote to give the president more or less authority under some rather specific what-if circumstances. I understood the votes of Biden and Clinton to be in favor of strong authority to act under those described circumstances. They both had presidential ambitions and both chose to err on the side of a more decisive presidential authority.

We all now know Bush and Co. rolled that into FULL authority and did whatever the hell they wanted. Clinton and Biden both say they would have voted differently on that if they would have know what Bush was going to do with it.

Obama had the complete luxury of representing at that time one of the most liberal districts in the State of Illinois and no vote in the US Senate to answer for later. It is becoming apparent that he is in fact much more 'hawkish' now that he has the full responsibility in his hands. It is also becoming apparent that he is centrist at best and not at all the left winger so many projected him to be on this issue.

I don't hate Hillary Clinton, but I do hate mindless labeling.
People who call others "Clinton haters" are "stoopid asshats." There.
Yes, seeker, only a minority of Obama supporters are "infuriated" by Hillary's appointment.
Most see that she's smart, very hard-working and tenacious enough to become a GREAT secretary of state. I hope she does.
But some of us feel she's Obama's biggest gamble of all his cabinet choices. It's not policy differences that pose the problem, it's character.
The leaks that surrounded her consideration for the post are a clue: Was there a serious offer? Was she torn over staying in the Senate? Would Bill's foreign entanglements sabotage her appointment? Would she get to pick her own staff?
Hillary confidants and surrogates were all over the MSM with details of the "negotiations."
Suddenly, again, it was all about Hillary.
Excuse me! You don't f-ing negotiate with the president of the United States. You accept the job, respectfully turn it down, or otherwise STFU.
Obama seems to think he and Hillary can operate from the same page. Yes, he knows her better than I do. But it's obvious she's a potential distraction, at a time when focus is crucial.
At the risk of accusations of misogynism, Hillary strikes me as a drama queen, the "high-maintenance" ex-girlfriend you warn a buddy not to go anywhere near.
I recall the night Obama sealed the nomination, and Hillary gave her pointed, bizarro-world non-concession speech.
CNN's Jeffrey Toobin was aghast, and called it for what it was: a prime example of "the deranged narcissism of the Clintons." Nailed it.
And that's the problem I see with Hillary.
She's brilliant and has enormous potential to improve the world. But as Bill's First Lady, she's had a warped political education.
Driven by ego rather than principle, she has made some terrible choices (including whom to rely on for campaign advice).
If she can cast much of that baggage aside -- and finally grow into her own person -- she may well earn a lock on the 2016 nomination. She could go on to be a great president.
As I said above, I hope she does.
I figure we should know within a year: either she'll blossom in her new job, or Obama will have to fire her insubordinate ass.