If Barack Obama appoints Hillary Clinton Secretary of State, as the Guardian claims he soon will, his cabinet would be awesome like Lincoln's! The Times' Gail Collins has already said so, and, what do you know, Obama in January read a book called "Team Of Rivals," about Lincoln's oppositional cabinet. But you know who else read and admired that book ahead of the primaries? Hillary Clinton! It's supposedly one of her favorite works, and yet her "Team of Rivals" resulted only in a humiliatingly inept bumbling of Clinton's presumed lead in the Democratic primaries. Everyone is starting to realize that "no-drama" Obama's plan could backfire too, because:

Bill Clinton took all that Chinese money

Chris Hitchens rails on this point in the video above from MSNBC's Hardball, mentioning a 1996 senate report on illegal campaign donations by Chinese agents and Bill Clinton's pardoning the likes of tax fugitive and Hillary Clinton donor March Rich. The argument, presumably, is that Clinton wouldn't be able to deal credibly with China, either because of bias or because she'd be fighting the perception of bias.

Bill Clinton took all that Middle Eastern money

The Times, too, raised the issue of Bill Clinton's fundraising in Tuesday's paper, including his $10 million in paid speeches around the world for organizations like the National Bank of Kuwait and contributions to his foundation from "the Saudi royal family, the king of Morocco, a foundation linked to the United Arab Emirates and the governments of Kuwait and Qatar."

Bill Clinton has creepy globalist billionaire friends

Bill Clinton also likes to fly around on private jets with scummy billionaire pussyhounds, his buddies. At least one of them, Ron Burkle, takes money from Dubai's government and has invested in a Chinese media company. Clinton has earned "at least $12.6 million since 2002 from his work as an adviser to Mr. Burkle," according to the Times.

Hillary Clinton is so not diplomatic

In the first days of Bill Clinton's presidency, Hillary threw a lamp at her husband during a heated argument, according to Newsweek, the Chicago Sun-Times and biographer David Brock, who also claimed (citing a park police officer) that Hillary yelled "You stupid motherfucker!" during another fight, on inauguration day.

Crazy gossip about the Clinton's personal life, right? But a more sympathetic biographer, Carl Bernstein, described an outburst in a much more official context. Via the New Yorker:

Clinton's biggest blunder, as Bernstein tells it, was to offend the very legislators whose support she needed most. At a retreat for Democratic senators in the spring of 1993, Clinton was asked whether it was realistic to pursue such an ambitious health-care program, given her husband's many other legislative initiatives. She responded that the Administration was prepared to "demonize" those who opposed the task force's recommendations.

"That was it for me in terms of Hillary Clinton," Senator Bill Bradley, of New Jersey, told Bernstein. "You don't tell members of the Senate you are going to demonize them. It was obviously so basic to who she is. The arrogance. The assumption that people with questions are enemies. The disdain. The hypocrisy."

Maybe Clinton learned from that experience and is more politic after 15 years. And yet her 2008 campaign was notoriously beset by the angriest sort of infighting, and Clinton was not above spreading the bad vibes. Via the Atlantic's campaign postmortem:

Mustering enthusiasm, Clinton declared that the campaign was mistaken not to have competed harder for the youth vote and that-overruling her New Hampshire staff-she would take questions at town-hall meetings designed to draw comparative," but not negative, contrasts with Obama. Hearing little response, Clinton began to grow angry, according to a participant's notes. She complained of being outmaneuvered in Iowa and being painted as the establishment candidate. The race, she insisted, now had "three front-runners." More silence ensued. "This has been a very instructive call, talking to myself," she snapped, and hung up.

When she finally did lose to Obama, Clinton could not bring herself to concede until the absolute last minute.

Hillary Clinton ran a race-baiting campaign against Obama

It's all in the eye of the beholder: Bill Clinton comparing Barack Obama to Jesse Jackson after Obama's South Carolina primary win; Hillary saying Obama is not a Muslim "as far as I know;" Hillary saying Obama was losing support among "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans." Maybe it's not at all racist. But it's definitely not tactful.

Hillary Clinton lied about Bosnia and so forth!

Remember this? Where Clinton claimed to have come under sniper fire while landing in Bosnia when her husband was president in 1996? It turned out CNN had video showing a peaceful greeting ceremony, involving a child with a poem. According to Chris Hitchens this means the she will never be trusted in the Balkans again, or something.