Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State -- Obama should remember the rule that you never hire anybody you can’t fire, especially as secretary of state.

From The New York Times:

Both Obama and Clinton advisers say that the relationship between the two is much more complex than one simply inspired by a keep-your-friends-close-and-your-enemies-closer philosophy. While Mr. Obama never seriously considered Mrs. Clinton as his running mate, one of his aides described him as “self-confident enough to want to send a message to the world about America and all that it can be — and Hillary Clinton as secretary of state would do that.”

The aide said that in the last few months of the campaign Mr. Obama came to appreciate the effort she made to rally her supporters on his behalf.

Should he pick her, Mr. Obama may further unite and energize his party, make clear to the world that he is serious about diplomacy, and send a substantive political signal to women.

It is not clear what room Mrs. Clinton’s presence as the nation’s top diplomat would leave for Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. to be an influential player in his specialty of foreign policy.

John Bolton, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations, who forecasted as early as this past July that Mrs. Clinton could wind up at the State Department, laughed as he offered the incoming president this piece of advice: “Obama should remember the rule that you never hire anybody you can’t fire, especially as secretary of state.”