Opinion: U.S. Senate votes 94-2 for Hillary Clinton to leave
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Well, ex-attorney, ex-first lady, ex-presidential candidate, never vice presidential nominee, ex-Sen. Hillary Clinton was not on the nation’s list of unemployed for long.
The Senate this afternoon approved her as President Obama’s new secretary of State, one day after his inauguration.
The vote was 94 to 2, with Republicans James DeMint and Louisiana’s David Vitter voting against and four senators absent, including Clinton. The nomination was never really in doubt, though Texas Sen. John Cornyn blocked unanimous consent on Inauguration Day to permit at least some brief debate today.
The Republican objections really centered more on her connections to husband Bill Clinton and his immense list of foreign donors and supporters for his foundation.
As The Ticket reported earlier today, Cornyn is also blocking the nomination of Eric Holder for attorney general for a week, but not so much over Holder’s approval of a pardon for fugitive financier Marc Rich in the closing moments of Bill Clinton’s presidency.
Corny seeks assurances that Holder will not seek to prosecute government agents who may have imposed waterboarding on Al Qaeda captives, which Holder says he now regards as torture.
Earlier today, one of Clinton’s BFF, Sen. John McCain, as a gesture of their quiet friendship detailed by The Ticket in recent months (stemming from the Arizonan’s warm welcome when she first arrived in the ultimate boys club and their common membership on and travel for the Armed Services Committee) tried to move the vote up earlier. But he was blocked by his own party’s members.
Clinton took the oath almost immediately in a nearby office with her husband present. Her departure leaves the female percentage of Senate members at 16 for the moment.
New York Democratic Gov. David Paterson says he’s likely to name Clinton’s successor by the weekend, with Caroline Kennedy believed to be the front-runner, despite Paterson’s denials, as The Ticket reported here Monday.
-- Andrew Malcolm
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