The O'Hanlon Primary and Rethinking My Hillary Vote. There's good reason not to put much stock in rumors at this point. But TPM put out something on the possibility of Hillary Clinton bringing Iraq war enthusiast Michael O'Hanlon into the Obama State Department. I don't see any actualy evidence that Hillary would include O'Hanlon. But O'Hanlon was the Joe Lieberman of the foreign policy establishment in his constant public support for the Bush administration against Democratic demands for withdrawing from Iraq. If Hillary does bring him into the State Department, she's a fool.

The O'Hanlon case is a good illustration of where to draw the line on bringing "Clinton people" into the Obama administration. The Clintons tilted rightward for good reason during the 1990's. They were under tremendous pressure from conservatives and the Democratic Party would have been severely damaged if they hadn't bent to the conservative wind.

But I voted for Hillary Clinton during the primaries because I perceived her as "getting it" on issues like withdrawing from Iraq, NAFTA, free trade, health care reform, energy, and financial sector deregulation. The same case can be said for Clinton-era holdovers like Eric Holder on Guantanamo and torture, former Senate leader Tom Daschle in relation to health care, and Rahm Emmanuel on managing the Obama White House in an environment of ferocious ideological conflict.

But Michael O'Hanlon definitely isn't on board on withdrawing from Iraq and is still saying that Obama's plan to get out of Iraq in 16 months is ill-considered.

O'Hanlon definitely doesn't get it.

If Hillary does bring O'Hanlon into the State Department, that would be a sign that she doesn't get it as well.