Let's talk about that 3 am phone call

Hillary's used the tragically bad image of who would answer the phone in the Whitehouse at 3 am after the next election, the implication being that Obama is too inexperienced to deal with emergency phone calls & McCain too likely to be fast asleep after a late night snack of Geritol. It's a bad image on so many levels (e.g., we know it won't be Bill answering the phone unless it rings in the interns' office) that I've been surprised that her campaign has used it.

Here's my real concern about someone from Hillary's entourage being the one's to answer the phone at 3 am after the election: the appallingly bad choices Hillary has made in the people who surround her. Let's consider just news in the last few months from the Hillary campaign.

1. Senior campaign advisor Sidney Blumenthal's January 2008 arrest for drunk driving. Really sure you want a drunk answering the phone at 3 am? I guess at least you know Sidney will still be up. Probably just getting home.

2. Patti Solis Doyle, who had been the campaign manager, stepped down in Feb 2008 after Hillary's disaster on Super Tuesday. Solis Doyle has been one of the primary architects of the "Hillary as presumptive nominee" media campaign.

3. Solis Doyle was replaced with Maggie Williams, who has been Hillary's chief of staff during the Clinton administration. William's work for Hillary during those years involved removing files from Vince Foster's office before the police arrived and other Whitehouse-plumbers type work. Think billing records for the Rose law firm. How did Williams earn a living after leaving the Clinton Whitehouse? Community outreach at a now failed subprime lender.

4. Hillary's national security advisor? None other than convicted felon Sandy Berger, convicted of stealing top secret classified documents from the National Archives via stuffing them down his pants.

And now we come to:

5. Mark Penn - Senior campaign advisor who was tossed under the wheels this weekend for working during his day job to secure a US trade agreement with Columbia. His representation for a foreign country was at odds with Hillary's supposed position of opposing any free trade agreement with Columbia.

Anyway, the summary is that Hillary has surrounded herself with people like herself: clever, utterly unprincipled, and morally aphasic. Having Hillary or anyone she's hired answering the phone at 3 am in the Whitehouse is one of the scariest things I can think of.