Is Hillary Working the “Enemies List” Against Kerry and Richardson?

Here’s a fascinating assessment by Al Giordano about the surprise leak of Hillary Clinton as Obama’s potential choice as Secretary of State, first reported by Andrea Mitchell on Countdown.

Giordano suggests the media are being played like drums by the Clinton people in an effort to undercut leading contenders, John Kerry and Bill Richardson, as payback for endorsing Obama in the primary.

The piece led to a bit of a firestorm at DKos, and even prompted a rebuttal of sorts from Keith Olbermann, who pointed to a Huffpo column indicating that Obama has offered the post to Clinton, leading to an updated response from Giordano expressing continued skepticism. (It even led to a post by Congressman Steve Cohen (D-Tenn), an Obama supporter and one of my favorite legislators in all of D.C., to suggest that this may be a sign of Obama’s Lincolnesque qualities!)

It’s all quite interesting. Although I generally respect Keith and tend to trust his instincts on most things, I’ve got to lean toward Al’s view on this one, because I can’t reconcile the following question:

Why would “anonymous Democratic sources” be pushing Hillary as a potential selection who has been offered the job, while simultaneously leaking all of the many reasons she might not want to take it?

I understand that Obama may be enamored with the “team of rivals” concept, and he seems to have the diplomatic and persuasion skills to pull it off. However, this doesn’t add up to me. It looks, as Al notes in his original piece, more like a way to make sure the eventual selection looks “like sloppy seconds!”

Frankly, I’m kind of hoping that Obama puts it all to rest by either persuading Hillary to take the job (if he actually offered it to her), or announcing that the person who eventually gets the job was his first choice (if he didn’t).