If You Thought Secretary of State Kerry Was Bad...

We noted Saturday some possible Cabinet appointments for Barack Obama, with names such as John Kerry and Chuck Hagel floated as Secretary of State and Defense Secretary, respectively.

Well, if those two names failed to send a chill down your spine, get ready for Director of Homeland Security Richard Clarke. Hey, why not just install Jamie Gorelick?

On national security, Obama has sought out advisors who, like him, believe in robust public diplomacy. His two top foreign policy advisors - Tony Lake and Susan Rice - are former Clintonites. Rice is expected to head the National Security Council and Lake is in contention for Secretary of State, along with Gov. Bill Richardson, Sen. John Kerry and GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel.

Obama has preached bipartisanship during his campaign, and many expect him to appoint a few Republicans to cabinet positions. Homeland Security could be headed by Bush critic and former White House counter-terrorism advisor Richard Clarke or GOP Senator Dick Lugar.

I could stomach Lugar, but the idea of putting Richard Clarke back in a position of power should scare the daylights out of people.

A hack like Eric Holder as AG should really inspire confidence considering his fine work in issuing fugitive Marc Rich a pardon.

Just as an aside, when has Obama preached bipartisanship? Somehow I've missed that.

Meanwhile, the latest polling numbers have McCain within three points in the Zogby poll but still six behind with Rasmussen. But the big news over at Rasmussen is that the long-awaited Joe the Plumber poll will soon be released.

Polling data on “Joe the Plumber” will be released later today.

Is Joe running for something? Since when are polls taken on random civilians?

It's Official: Spitzer Totally Clueless, Receives Kiss of Death Endorsement

Despite overwhelming opposition, clueless New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is determined at any cost to hand out driver's licenses to illegal aliens.

If you needed another reason to know this is completely insane, all you need to know is who endorsed the idea today.

Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism adviser to three presidents, on Friday endorsed Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan to make it easier for illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses.

"States should act to register immigrants, legal and illegal, who use our roadways as New York is doing," Clarke said in a statement to be delivered in a morning news conference with Spitzer in New York City.

"From a law enforcement and security perspective, it is far preferable for the state to know who is living in it and driving on its roads, and to have their photograph and their address on file than to have large numbers of people living in our cities whose identity is totally unknown to the government," said Clarke, who advised presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

UPDATE: Spitzer gets hammered by the NY Post editorial. Seems Clarke's endorsement -- naturally -- is worthless.

Gov. Spitzer, in a deep hole over his plan to give drivers' licenses to ille gal immigrants, won't stop digging.

He spoke at NYU's Center for Law and Security yesterday to underscore the plan's security bells-and-whistles in a bid to reassure an astonishingly skeptical public. (A scant 22 percent of New Yorkers approve of the scheme, according to a recent poll.)

He trumpeted an endorsement of the plan from Richard Clarke, a counter-terrorism czar in both the Clinton and Bush White Houses.

Bringing in Clarke as a supporter of the plan was an odd choice, to say the least.

For one thing, despite heading up the nation's anti-terrorism effort from 1998, Clarke failed to foresee 9/11. Maybe nobody could have, but the attack effectively revoked Clarke's security-expert credentials.

Yesterday, though, Spitzer distributed this statement from Clarke: "[States] should act to register immigrants, legal and illegal, who use our roadways as New York is doing. From a law-enforcement and security perspective, it is far preferable for the state to know who is living in it and driving on its roads."

A clear endorsement of the Spitzer plan, right?

Read on.

Previously: Spitzer in Freefall

Moron Spitzer Forges Ahead With Licenses for Illegals

Spitzer to Let Illegals Get Driver's Licenses

Mrs. Clinton Hires Criminal Berger as Security Adviser

A supreme arrogance has enveloped the Clinton campaign, and you really have to question the thought process behind hiring convicted criminal Sandy Berger as a top adviser.

The man should be in prison, never mind working on apresidential campaign.

Sandy Berger, who stole highly classified terrorism documents from the National Archives, destroyed them and lied to investigators, is now an adviser to presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Berger, who was fired from John Kerry’s presidential campaign when the scandal broke in 2004, has assumed a similar role in Clinton’s campaign, even though his security clearance has been suspended until September 2008. This is raising eyebrows even among Clinton’s admirers.

“It shows poor judgment and a lack of regard for Berger’s serious misdeeds,” said law professor Jonathan Adler of Case Western Reserve University, who nonetheless called Clinton “by far the most impressive candidate in the Democratic field.”

Adler told The Examiner that it is “simply incomprehensible to me that a serious contender for the presidency would rely upon him as a key foreign policy advisor.”

He added: “If Senator Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee, at some point she will begin to receive national security briefings that will include sensitive information. At such a point, continuing to keep Berger on board as a key advisor, where he might have access to sensitive material, would be beyond incomprehensible.”

The Clinton campaign declined to comment.

Berger has admitted stealing documents from the National Archives in advance of the 9/11 Commission hearings in 2003. The documents, written by White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, were a “tough review” of the Clinton administration’s shortcomings in dealing with terrorism, Clarke’s lawyer told the Washington Post.

On several occasions, Berger stuffed highly classified documents into his pants and socks before spiriting them out of the Archives building in Washington, according to investigators. On one occasion, upon reaching the street, he hid documents under a construction trailer after checking the windows of the Archives and Justice Department buildings to make sure he was not being watched.

H/T's LGFers Killian Bundy and BeerForMyHorses.

Image via Rush.