I find myself in a very strange position this week. When the world was overtaken by Obamamania last year, I was a late swooner. Some may recall that I even occasionally criticized the Democratic nominee. So why am I mainly happy with the way Obama's handled the presidential transition, when so many early swooners, especially in the blogosphere and mainstream media, are so critical?

Since his most controversial move is (reportedly) considering Hillary Clinton for secretary of state, it's clear my respect for Clinton has a lot to do with it. I thought she'd be an excellent president, so it's not surprising I think she'd be a good choice for secretary of state. She's smart and tough, has a lot of respect worldwide, she had an international portfolio as first lady, and she's strengthened that experience as a senator and on the Armed Services Committee. She'd also be a strong voice for women's rights globally.

But there's one qualification to my belief that she'd be a good choice: I only think so if Barack Obama thinks so. If he believes she can contribute to his foreign policy, but most important, carry it out; that she can represent him well and inform his worldview; that she can improve our standing abroad, well, then, I believe she can, too. This choice is neither a popularity contest nor a meritocracy; it's all about the person the president believes can best represent his foreign policy and America's interests in the world. He has to deeply trust the man or woman in that role.

One reason I believe Clinton could loyally represent Obama's foreign policy is that I think the differences between them were exaggerated for political reasons during the primary season. He had a political stake in portraying her as a hawk; she had one in portraying him as naive and unready. He was right about Iraq from the get-go and she was wrong, but their positions on how to get out were virtually identical. Despite their debates about how and when to sit down with dictators, I think they'd take much the same approach to dealing with both our enemies and our friends. So it makes sense to me that Obama would seriously consider her for the post.

Now, if they continue to talk and he has doubts about her capacity to loyally represent him abroad; if concerns emerge about President Clinton's global dealings; if any number of genuine troubles arise that convince Obama that despite his initial enthusiasm, it's not the right choice, I'll accept that. The only bad reason not to pick Hillary Clinton as secretary of state is the predictable media mob of Clinton haters telling him not to.

I just finished a "Hardball" debate on this with Michelle Bernard, who said it was "bordering on sheer lunacy" that Obama was considering Clinton. My friend Chris Matthews, no Clinton fan, led off the segment blaming the Clintons for the flurry of leaks about her possible appointment, although I reminded him that when NBC's Andrea Mitchell broke the news last week, she cited only Obama sources. It's clear there's more leaking from the Obama transition team -- about Rahm Emanuel, Eric Holder and Tom Daschle, not just Clinton -- than there was from the campaign team. Rather amazingly, Matthews said I won him over with my argument that people who trust and believe in Obama should trust him on the choice of Clinton as secretary of state as well. We'll see.

Meanwhile, the selection of former Sen. Tom Daschle as secretary of Health and Human Services should mollify those who were beginning to wonder whether Obama was leaning too heavily on Clinton loyalists in his staff and Cabinet picks. My God, it just seems early to worry. He has a ton of appointments left. The only reason Clinton is getting so much attention is that Clinton haters are making her the top story. Who's going to be secretary of the Treasury, and how should he or she modify the bailout Henry Paulson is managing so poorly? Who's Obama's education pick, and what can that person do to improve American education, especially for low-income kids? Why aren't we debating those questions all day and night on cable news? Trust me: It's not because Bill Clinton is holding a gun to someone's head, demanding that we talk about him and his wife 24/7, no matter what Christopher Hitchens might claim.

On MSNBC's "Hardball" tonight, Pat Buchanan was not only insisting Barack Obama should pick Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, he also gave Obama advice about handling his left-wing base – and it's not what you'd expect. Buchanan suggested that with his next Cabinet pick, "he ought to give someone to the Daily Kos ... the people who supported and elected him."

This on a day when one anonymous Democratic aide bragged to Chris Cilizza that letting Joe Lieberman keep his chairmanship would mean: "The left has been foiled again. They can rant and rage but they still do not put the fear into folks to actually change their votes. Their influence would be in question." It's odd that Buchanan shows more respect for the left than leading Democrats do. The Lieberman decision is an abomination, and Obama and the Democrats may well regret it. Buchanan is no friend of the left, obviously, but he's an old-time pol who understands the importance of keeping the base happy. Too many Democrats seem to think the first thing they should do when they get power is display contempt for their base.

But I think it's important to keep the Democrats' and Obama's moves on Lieberman separate from the way we assess his Cabinet choices right now. I’m obviously not someone who sees Hillary Clinton as a bad, anti-change appointment; I think she'd make a terrific secretary of state. I have no problem with Eric Holder as attorney general, either; I think he'd fix the Justice Department that Bush destroyed, and I'm happy to see that Obama isn't afraid to make an African-American his first official Cabinet pick. I wish Holder had tried to block the awful Marc Rich pardon when he was deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, but I'm not sure a lot of deputies would have stood up on that issue.

Still, I understand the disappointment of some Obama supporters, watching so many Clinton staffers line up for jobs in the change administration. I don't share their disappointment, because I honestly didn't believe there was much difference between Clinton and Obama, and how they would govern, in the first place. Some of the angst seems a little goofy: It's always been true that a lot of people closest to Obama during the campaign -- Holder, new White House counsel Greg Craig, foreign policy advisors Susan Rice and Anthony Lake; after the primary, Rahm Emanuel – once worked for the Clintons. So should they be seen as Clinton loyalists, or the new Obama team? It's funny how they were all seen as part of the new politics of change represented by Obama -- until he started building his administration, and then the mainstream media (and a few on the left) started deriding them as old school.

So while I think anger about the Lieberman maneuver is justified, I think it's way too early to panic about Obama's Democratic status-quo Cabinet. He's got plenty of time for unconventional picks.

Meanwhile, I don't know what to think on the Hillary Clinton front. It seems very strange that the Obama team revealed this possible appointment, and yet five days later, it's still little more than a well-sourced rumor. Are they really letting the media vet Clinton -- and Bill Clinton -- to see if they're worth the trouble? That doesn't seem like the Obama we've come to know, who appears to be a person of courage and integrity. All of Clinton's pluses -- intelligence, experience, stature on the world stage -- and minuses -- certain policy differences with Obama, her husband's baggage -- were well known before anybody ever mentioned a possible Clinton Cabinet post to a reporter. It's an odd mini-drama that's dragging out longer than it should, but this time it doesn't seem as though Clinton is to blame.

I've been pretty convinced that the Democratic Senate leadership needs to strip Sen. Joe Lieberman of his role as Homeland Security chairman. Below is a great debate between Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, whatever side you're on. Bayh told Maddow that Lieberman "needs to apologize" for his attacks on Barack Obama during the campaign, and says Senate Democrats can "take away his chairmanship" if he undermines Obama's administration in his leadership role. But he says a "bitter" Lieberman who leaves the Senate (to be replaced by Connecticut's Republican governor) or caucuses with Republicans is worse for Democrats than a turncoat senator who remains in place.

Whatever you think about Lieberman, it's amazing to have someone like Maddow interrogating the Evan Bayhs of the world. Here's the interview:

MADDOW: You have been outspoken of Senator Lieberman keeping his role as chair of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Why do you think he's the best Democrat for that job at this point?

BAYH: I don't think this is about Joe Lieberman, Rachel. I think this is about maximizing our chances of making the changes that we need in America, maximizing the chances that President-elect Obama will meet those expectations you referred to by addressing the challenges that we face that you also reported on just a few moments ago. And let me explain to you what I mean. If this was just about Joe Lieberman and the things he said in the campaign, well, I'd say we'll let it go. I mean, if people want to settle scores, fine. I mean, he's a big guy, he can live with the consequences of his actions.

But one of two things will be likely to happen if we were to kick him out of his chairmanship. No. 1, he might very well decide to just resign from the Senate. You know, he probably would not want to be a person without a home, wandering the hallways without any influence of any kind. And Connecticut has a Republican governor, who would appoint a pure Republican to that seat, who would vote against the wishes of the president-elect and the Democratic caucus, you know, the vast, vast majority of the time. That's No. 1.

No. 2, Lieberman, Joe Lieberman might decide to stay and be embittered. And what would happen there would be from time to time, we have close votes. You've been reporting on the Alaska race and the Minnesota race and the Georgia race. We could be at 58, 59, maybe even 60 votes. Every two or three or four months, there's going to be a critically important vote, very close, every vote will count. And it might come down to one vote.

Now, if Senator Lieberman has a strong view, he'll vote his conscience, but if he's conflicted, frankly, you know, doesn't really know what to do, and we've exacted revenge on him, I suspect we could probably expect the same in return. That's really not where we want to go. Let's see if we can move this in a better direction.

And the final thing I'd say is, if he does retain his chairmanship, we still exert oversight over him and control over him. He doesn't have the ability to just do whatever he wants. The caucus still has the right to remove him from that position at any time if he starts going off on some kind of tangent.

So I simply think it maximizes the chances of getting progressive policies a better outcome if we have a Joe Lieberman, who is a little reticent, who apologizes for the things that he said that were way over the line, and instead is trying to do the right thing, instead of an embittered Joe Lieberman or a Republican replacement who will not be with us any of the time.

MADDOW: Is it not setting a strange precedent, though, for somebody to have not only campaigned against the nominee of his party but also to have campaigned against other Democratic Senate candidates and for Republicans, and to have honestly not only campaigned for his friend John McCain but also really deliberately against Barack Obama -- as you said, going, I think, quite over the line in terms of some of his criticism.

Is it not setting a strange precedent that he essentially gets to set the terms on which he stays in the caucus? He's said he will bolt the caucus if he doesn't get to hold on to his chairmanship. It seems weird that he should be the guy driving the bargain at this point, particularly when he's sort of politicized homeland security in order to make political points this year.

BAYH: Well, it is unusual territory. And you know, I was on another national show, one of the Sunday programs sitting right next to him, when he basically said that Barack Obama was for defeat in Iraq. And I had to cut him off and say, Joe, that's not true. I mean, he said things that were simply unacceptable, and I think he needs to apologize for that. And the question for us, then, Rachel, is how do we move on from here and maximize the chances of us getting good things done for the country, for your viewers. And I think the best way to do that is to look to the future rather than to just exact revenge for the past.

Now, at the same time, you have got to expect an apology, a sincere apology, and you have got to keep -- to tell him, look, we're going to give you a chance here. But if you don't do the right things as chairman, if, you know, we see any continuation of this kind of behavior, well, then, at that point, you know, the game is up at that point.

MADDOW: But the game would be up in the sense that he would get stripped of his leadership positions?

BAYH: Of the chairmanship, yes. You've got to remember, we have the right to change chairmen at any time during the session, and you know, we would expect him to conduct himself in that capacity, as someone who was supportive of the administration and did not certainly conduct himself in a way that reflected some of those comments, which I strongly disagreed with at the time, and still do disagree with.

MADDOW: Senator Bayh, do you think that there are going to be major issues -- major divisions within the Democratic caucus on issues of national security and homeland security moving forward? I mean, one of the things about Joe Lieberman's chairmanship is that he, in the past couple of years, has been a real contrast with his colleague in the House, his counterpart in the House, Henry Waxman, who heads the Government Affairs Committee there, in terms of what he's been willing to investigate. Joe Lieberman didn't investigate the government's response to Katrina or the Blackwater shootings in Iraq or anything like that. Are there going to be real interparty divisions on security issues, or do you see a united front going forward?

BAYH: Well, I would hope we would have a united front. And you know, if the caucus and the committee feels that there are areas worthy of investigation -- and you mentioned two that I think would warrant investigation -- then there should ... one would need to go forward, regardless of what the chairman happens to think. And we have the power to demand that sort of thing.

But I do hope, Rachel, we have just come through a tough campaign. We have major issues that we face, real challenges -- healthcare, education, the environment, getting out of Iraq -- a lot of things that we need to do. I would hope we would have the maximum amount of unity addressing those things. And I honestly think -- you know, look, we can take away his chairmanship. That's something we have the right to do. What you will have at that point is either someone who may very well resign or someone who's embittered, and if, you know, all else being equal, might not be with us on some of these key votes. I honestly think we have a better chance to get unity for the kind of policies that you would probably support, most Democrats would probably support, if we try and have some reconciliation here rather than resorting to revenge right off the bat. You always have that option if things don't seem to be working out very well.

MADDOW: You're giving me a great prompt to ask Senator Lieberman to come deliver that apology on this show. So thank you for that. And thank you for -- sorry, go ahead.

BAYH: Issue the invitation. And by the way, congratulations on being No. 7. In the United States Senate -- in the United States Senate, that would be right up there.

MADDOW: I would be fighting it out with Lieberman at this point, I know.

How can we miss her if she won't go away? The Sarah Palin rehabilitation tour began as soon as the election ended, but so far, I'm not being won over by her attempted charm offensive. I expected Fox's Greta van Susteren to pander to her, given her employer, but I was a little surprised at Matt Lauer's friendly, supportive probing as he ate dinner with the Palin family in the kitchen in Wasilla, and tried to help the former Veepzilla tell her side of the story.

Let me say first: I agree with Palin on one thing: the anonymous McCain advisors who've savaged her since she became a drag on their ticket are cowards and jerks. Whatever her flaws, McCain is to blame for all of them, because he's the one who "went rogue" and picked her with inadequate vetting. I've said that before. But Palin isn't particularly helping her case with these interviews. If you like her, you'll like what she has to say. If you don't like her, or more relevant, don't think she ever had what it takes to be vice-president: Well, nothing in either interview will reassure you.

Hands down her worst performance came in a "Web-only" video where Lauer asks Palin about the infamous Katie Couric interview, and whether it took a toll on her confidence. She tells Lauer no, but adds: "I think it also showed, though, that certainly as a Washington outsider and not one to just I guess play even the campaigning media game that is played, in just repeating, perhaps, memorized lines in a, in a interview, that's not me." Read that again. Trademark Palin grammar, and totally unconvincing. Answering questions about foreign policy and Supreme Court decisions isn't a matter of rote memorization, it's a matter of knowledge, depth, intellectual curiosity and experience that she clearly doesn't have.

She was also borderline dishonest about the issue of whether she looked into banning books while she was Wasilla mayor, using as "proof" the fact that some people claimed she wanted to ban the "Harry Potter" series, even though it was written after she was mayor. In fact, Salon interviewed a Wasilla minister who said his book, "Pastor, I Am Gay," was on Palin's hit list. Palin can say Howard Bess is lying, but she's choosing to address only the most ludicrous claims against her. Not convincing.

She was also unconvincing when she downplayed talk of campaign infighting and dysfunction -- and then gave Lauer a great example of it. She told the story of working with two speechwriters on a version of a concession speech to give in Phoenix. But she admits she didn't know until she was walking up to the stage that she wouldn't be allowed to give it. That's dysfunction. And even though I'm sympathetic to Palin's complaints about McCain advisors' anonymous claims that she sent aides out shopping for her, her defense won't rise beyond "he said, she said" sniping until she's willing to name some names, herself. Who bought the clothes? Who does she think is behind the leaks? I'm sure she knows.

But the saddest part for me was the interview with little Piper, who tells Matt Lauer she didn't like campaign rallies, missed her friends and fell behind in school. But when Mommy asks if she'd like to do it again in 2012, Piper says sure. I found myself asking: Why wasn't Piper home attending school, like the Obama daughters did most of the time? Was Todd Palin enjoying the campaign trail too much to stay home with the family?

I'm hoping I can put Sarah Palin behind me, although she's got a big star turn Wednesday at the Republican Governor's Association meeting, including a press conference. Clearly she thinks she's ready for prime time, and that the McCain campaign hid her light under a bushel. So we'll be seeing more of her in the weeks to come. Given her plummeting poll numbers at the end of the campaign, it's just more good news for Democrats that she's fighting to emerge as a party leader in the wake of McCain's shellacking.

Here is a great analysis by John Judis showing that, ultimately, despite all the dire warnings of a "Bradley effect," race didn't decide this election.

It's not simple, or simplistic. It's clear race cost Barack Obama votes in some Southern states and counties, where lower-income, less-educated white voters rejected him in higher numbers than they did John Kerry four years ago, despite the Democratic tide in 2008.

But overall Judis concludes that race didn't hurt Obama. In national exit polls, those who said race was a major factor in their vote backed Obama 53-46, suggesting that race was a "net plus" for Obama, Judis says. In some white states he outperformed Kerry, as well as the white Senate candidate (New Hampshire is one). I was particularly intrigued by what Judis says about Ohio:

Then there were states where Obama had previously encountered resistance on account of his race but that he carried in the election. These include some of the crucial battleground states. When Hillary Rodham Clinton defeated Obama in Ohio's Democratic primary last March, 20% of Ohio's voters said race was an "important factor" in their decision, according to exit polls. Of these, 59% voted for Clinton. That suggested about 12% of Ohio's white Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents opposed Obama partly or primarily because of his race. Primary voters, of course, are a small percentage of those who vote in a general election and, on average, are less likely to take race into account. So it was probably fair to assume that Obama could lose as much as 20% of the Democratic vote in November because of his race.

But in the general election, Obama carried Ohio Democrats by 9 to 1, and improved on Kerry's totals from 2004 among white voters. There was evidence that race was a factor -- 19% said it was "important" in their vote -- but Obama got these voters by 52% to 47%.

Canvassers in Ohio said Obama's economic message trumped race, and that seemed true in Pennsylvania as well. In white, working class Levittown, Pa., Clinton beat Obama 3-1 in the April primary. But last week, Obama slaughtered McCain there, getting more votes in the four municipalities that comprise the Levittown region than Kerry did. It's clear some people voted for Obama despite still harboring doubts about electing an African American. “I have to admit, his race made my decision harder,” Joe Sinitski told the New York Times. “I was brought up that way. And I don’t like his name. I’ll admit to that, too.”

I've said it before, but I'll say it one last time: It's clear the long primary was good for Obama. Hillary Clinton showed him the primacy of economic issues in the big eastern and midwestern states, and modeled a kitchen-table appeal that could win those voters. Obama's pitch in October and November was far more focused and populist than it was in March and April (of course, the September economic crisis helped) and people liked the difference.

There's another observation worth making about Clinton's primary campaign. One thing got lost in the debate over her run, over whether she should have quit earlier,  how many of her supporters were racist, and so on: It was an amazing accomplishment -- for Hillary Clinton and for America -- that Clinton became the standard bearer of the white working class, especially blue collar men; that she, of all people, became the person who pointed the way toward winning back Reagan Democrats.

Remember that we're talking about Hillary Clinton here. In the 1990s, a political industry was devoted to making her the poster girl for emasculating radical feminism and left-wing politics. Long before Obama was being smeared as a Marxist, Clinton was fending off those charges (Remember "It Takes a Village" as a prescription for socialism?) For a lot of people, especially men, she was far worse than her husband. One thing I couldn't believe during the primary was the number of male friends who simply despised her in the 1990s, who voted for her in the primaries this year.

Looking back, it's clear many Obama supporters were too busy blaming racism for her success, while Hillary backers were too busy blaming sexism for her failure, to appreciate what a huge triumph for feminism and social justice her 18 million votes represented.

So congratulations to white people who overcame their prejudices to vote for Obama. Congratulations to working class men and women who overcame the right-wing's depiction of Hillary as radical harridan to vote for her in the primaries. Congratulations to all of us. Obama will become president in a global crisis, but the country behind him has never been stronger.

The Media Research Center's Brent Bozell, like NRO's John Derbyshire, is probably someone I should ignore now that it's finally morning in America, for the rest of us. But Bozell's latest outburst is useful in pointing up the complete say-anything hypocrisy of the right wing as it tries to get used to the idea of a President Obama.

As Media Matters reported Friday, just two weeks ago Bozell was on "Fox and Friends" frothing about Obama espousing "socialism." But today he told Fox's Bill Hemmer "that Barack Obama ran as a Reaganite and won over the fiscal -- the public as a fiscal conservative." Bozell continued: "That means that Barack Obama does not have the mandate to enact the left-wing agenda he wants to enact. He didn't run on it, he ran from it."

Few conservatives are quite as blatantly dishonest as Bozell, but this is generally how the discourse has shifted.  I should also note that Media Matters had already done pretty much  what I asked for on Wednesday: a study examining where the country's "center" really lies, and showing how much closer it is to liberalism than Bush-Cheney-Rove conservatism.

In other news: I will stop being such a starry-eyed Obama fan soon, I promise, but I loved his line today about wanting to get a shelter puppy for his daughters, which would likely be mixed-breed, or "a mutt, like me." I think he's already made it easier to talk about race in this country, and it's only going to get better.