VP Hillary? Not! Reason #1: Obama Would Need a Food Taster (Gergen)

This will be the first of many posts on the subject of why Barack Obama should not ask Hillary Clinton to join his ticket as the Democratic Party’s Vice-Presidential candidate. Reason Number 1 was articulated in an offhand witticism by the usually serious David Gergen, appearing on CNN on the evening of the North Carolina and Indiana primaries. Asked by Anderson Cooper why Obama might not want to choose Clinton as his VP, Gergen (no stranger to the corridors of power) said this, “I think people around him [Obama] think he would need to hire a food-taster!” Gergen laughed at his own joke along with the rest of the CNN panel. Fortunately, the comment elicited little conversation in the blogosphere, sparing Gergen the embarrassment of a retraction or, worse yet, an apology to Senator Clinton.

It’s worth remembering that 45 years later, we have still not put to rest the rumors about the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy, many of which include JFK’s own VP, Lyndon Baines Johnson. And Senator Clinton herself added “reverb” to Gergen’s comment when she inadvertently (we hope) referred to Robert Kennedy’s assassination last week in her sit-down at the Argus Leader in South Dakota, albeit in the context of the long primary calendar historically stretching into June (when RFK was gunned down after the California primary). But perhaps even HRC might realize (as perhaps the aging LBJ did in 1960), in the unimagined recesses of her subconscious mind, that a “heartbeat away from the presidency” is, well, exactly that.

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