A memo to the president

Dear Mr. President,

Congratulations on your re-election.

I mean, let’s not get ahead of ourselves; you still have a tough race to run this year. Karl Rove and the Koch brothers are going to throw everything and a kitchen sink at your head, and you’ve just got to convince Soros not to fund a get-out-the-vote operation.

But take a step back and look at your opponent. OK, laugh a bit. Yes, Mitt Romney is not a very good politician, but worse than that, he’s a design-by-committee candidate.

He’s got all the killer features thrown together in a box with no vision whatsoever. He’s like Windows ME — except the windows to his soul keep throwing an Etch A Sketch data corruption error.

If you look at recent presidential history, America doesn’t elect design-by-committee candidates if it can avoid it. So, feel good (if not too good) about your chances at this point.

That brings me to the actual point of this memo: selecting your team for the upcoming term. Despite being a bigmouth, Joe Biden is a good-hearted, honest person.

Besides, his name is already printed on the yard signs. He’s going to be
your VP.

Next in importance comes Thomas Jefferson’s job, the Secretary of State.

Now, Mr. President, you made history last term when you picked your arch-nemesis Hillary Clinton to be your Secretary of State. And by all accounts, it was a great choice.

She’s done a fantastic job, wearing herself and her plane ragged from all the travel, as well as winning accolades for being a sensible, diplomatic human being (aka what Republicans like to call “apologizing for America”).

But Ol’ Hillz wants some time to relax, and who can blame her given that she’ll be running for president again in two to three years? So, you need a new
SecState.

Let’s run down the list again. The media and insiders are currently pushing three people to the top of your list: John Kerry, Susan Rice and Tom Donilon.

John Kerry, former presidential wannabe and chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is a guy who clearly wants the position and is undoubtedly going to be helpful in taking down Romney.

But really, John Kerry? The man’s been “auditioning” for the State position since he came out of his mother’s womb and realized there were other countries out there. You really want to reward that?

Susan Rice, your Ambassador to the UN, is a sharp foreign policy hand with an impressive resume and a lot of trust in the West Wing.

But haven’t we seen this movie before? Her name was Madeline Albright — ring a bell?

Finally, Tom Donilon is supposedly regarded as the best political/policy head out of the three, but do you really need a political guy as Secretary of State? Does putting Donilon in that position move things forward?

Mr. President, it’s time to think a bit outside the box.

If indeed you win your election, it’s going to be a thoroughly partisan affair after which Republicans are going to be cruising for a bruising.

You should throw them a bone — not a very big one, but at least extend a favor and appoint a Republican Secretary of State. And if there’s any question in your mind, there’s only one man for the job.

Dick Lugar is as honorable a man as you could find in Washington and would make a great Secretary of State.

Perhaps he’s been branded as more of a RINO, but I don’t think that’d
matter to him.

If being big and post-partisan is still your thing, then Dick Lugar is the way to do that. Please think it over.

­— sidfletc@indiana.edu