Hillary front runner in race for top US diplomat

     
NEW YORK: US President-elect Barack Obama's advisers have begun reviewing former president Bill Clinton's finances and activities as a possible preclude to the appointment of his wife Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.
     
The examination of the former president suggests how seriously Obama is considering bringing his onetime rival for the Democratic presidential nomination into his cabinet, a media report said today, citing Democrats close to him.
     
Obama met with Clinton secretly in Chicago on Thursday to talk about the prospect and word quickly filtered out. Many Democrats close to both camps were quoted as saying that it seemed likely that Obama would ask her to take the job, assuming they could work something out regarding Bill Clinton's role.
     
A team of lawyers trying to facilitate the potential nomination spend the weekend looking into Bill Clinton's philanthropic organisation, interactions with foreign governments and ties to pharmaceutical companies, a Democrat close to both camps told the New York Times.
     
Obama advisers are discussing what Bill Clinton would need to do to avoid a conflict of interest with the duties of his wife, who is said to be interested in the post.
     
"That's the first and most important hurdle," another adviser to Obama told the paper. "He does good work. No one wants it to stop, but a structure to avoid conflicts must be thought of."
     
More than a dozen advisers to both sides told the paper that although they did not have firm information, they considered it improbable that Obama would have opened the door to Hillary Clinton's appointment without having decided, at least in principle, that he would like to make it happen.

Rejecting her after letting the possibility become so public would risk a new rupture within a party that spent much of the year divided between Obama and the Clintons, the paper said.
     
The possibility of Hillary's nomination has generated positive response, even from across the aisle, it said.
     
Senator Jon Kyl, the No 2 Republican in the Senate, said on "Fox News Sunday": "It seems to me she's got the experience. She's got the temperament for it. I think she would be well received around the world. So my own initial reaction is it would be a very good selection."
     
Speaking at an economic conference in Kuwait, Clinton openly acknowledged the possibility. "If he decided to ask her and they did it together, I think she'll be really great as a secretary of state," he was quoted as saying.
     
"She worked very hard for his election after the primary fight with him, and so did I, and we were very glad that he won."
     
One sign that many said pointed to Clinton's possible selection was the news that Gregory B Craig would be White House counsel instead of national security adviser or deputy secretary of state, as some had expected.
     
A law school friend of the Clintons who represented Bill Clinton during impeachment, Craig backed Obama from the start of the campaign and was a scathing critic of Hillary's claims to foreign policy experience, the paper noted.
     
Although some advisers saw no connection, others said putting him in a foreign policy job would be untenable if Mrs Clinton were secretary of state, the Times said.
     
In an interview broadcast on Sunday on "60 Minutes," Obama said that the first members of his cabinet would be announced soon, but declined to expound on his conversation with Hillary. "She is somebody who I needed advice and counsel from," he said.