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Monday December 1st is supposed to be the day that the President-Elect announces the name of his Secretary of State. All indications are that it will be Hillary Clinton. Unlike some conservatives I do not hate Hillary. As a matter of fact I respect some of the things she has been able to accomplish. She has gone from the cheated on, scorned wife of the Arkansas Governor to the cheated on, scorned wife of the President of the United States. Even after her dismal failure at reinventing socialized medicine in the U.S. she was able to get elected as U.S. Senator from a state in which she did not live, garnering far more credibility and authority than most first term Senators, to a viable candidate for the presidency.

She convinced millions of ardent supporters that she was qualified to take the reins of power and lead the country in these very dangerous times simply because she once had the White House as her return address. Her ad campaign regarding the 3:00 AM phone call was meant to further the idea that she was ready no matter what disaster was waiting on the other end of that call. It apparently worked for some of her base as “Ready From Day One” became the rallying cry. For me it brought the image of a phone call at 3:00 AM from her hubby with music playing in the background and old Bill explaining that he had been working late on a new set of memoirs and missed the bus and would be home once he was able to find a cab.

Hillary lost the Democratic presidential primary to the only candidate that was less experienced and qualified than she was. Now in an effort to pay tribute to the Clintons and more importantly remove Hillary from a position where she can actively work against him He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken will give her the leading position for the State Department. It makes perfect political sense for him t do this. He will give her a position of authority and in return she will be unable to work against his proposals in the Senate. It will also take her out of the running as a presidential candidate for as long a she stays in his administration. Even Hillary knows she couldn’t quit and run against the guy who gave her the job. She will accept the positions as a training ground for her presidential candidacy in eight years.

In the mean time we will have a President with no foreign policy experience other than what he was able to absorb as a grade school student attending school in a foreign land. And a Secretary of State with no foreign policy experience other than ducking from imaginary bullets in Bosnia and shaking hands with foreign leaders before chewing out the waiters at state dinners.

December 1st is also a day of infamy in Chicago. This year’s December 1 will mark the 50th anniversary of the greatest tragedy in the city’s history. December 1, 1958 was the day that 92 school children and 3 nuns were killed in a fire at Our Lady of Angels grade school. The pictures of valiant firefighters carrying the lifeless bodies of these little uniform clad children are seared into the greater consciousness of any Chicagoan who lived here at that time. The tragedy was felt so deeply that many in the neighborhood felt the need to sell their home and move away just to escape the daily memories.

Accompanying the overwhelming tragedy of the body count were the scores of surviving children that were severely burned or overwhelmed by smoke inhalation. Many of these survivors are now reaching retirement age having carried with them the scars, both physical and emotional, their entire life. Nobody who was involved, from the students and their families to the heroic firefighters and their families, from the emergency room doctors and nurses to the residents of the west side Chicago neighborhood to the photographers and reporters who covered the tragedy were ever the same after that day.

There was never an official determination of the cause of the fire and nobody was ever charged or even implicated. The long accepted story is that the unknown source of the fire started in storage closet in the school. A nun smelled the smoke and instead of immediately setting off the fire alarm went to the main office and reported it to her superior. The principle decided to call on a janitor to put out the fire but by then it was too late. By the time the fire department was notified much of the second floor of the school was trapped.

To be sure public sentiment was far different in 1958 than it is today. While there was great sadness and anger over this tragedy it was eventually concluded that placing blame would not serve any good purpose. Had fire officials’ assigned responsibility it would have made no difference in bringing back even one of the victims lost or healing the wounds of one burn victim. The tragedy did force schools all over the country to review and refine their own fire safety and evacuation plans. Hopefully that will be the positive legacy of this great loss.

Nobody in authority had intentionally disregarded their duties to the safety of the children. They were simply unprepared to deal with this unexpected occurrence. It was expected by every parent that sent their child to Our Lady of Angels that the adults would know what to do. Unfortunately even good intentions without proper training and experience leave us vulnerable to the poor decisions.

In the recent presidential election the voting public ate up the promise of change without ever considering the possible ramification of decisions that sometimes must be made very quickly. We elected a man who is completely unqualified and unprepared. He will in turn make a strictly political move and give the number one position in the State Department to a woman whose only claim to fame in the realm of foreign diplomacy is that she was a close witness to an administration that failed at every turn. North Korea advanced their nuclear program as did Iran. The Middle East continued to develop deep seated hatred amongst a host of Islamic terrorist organizations. Iraq continued their ethnic cleansing and Saddam Hussein along with his two sons and a host of demented government council members reigned with an iron fist and deadly nerve gas. The United States was infiltrated with sleeper cells learning to fly planes but never land them. An administration that was offered Osama bin Laden and chose to do nothing.

Is it possible that in the entire country, with all the bright and experienced people available, that Hillary Clinton is the most qualified person to be installed as Secretary of State?

December 1st is a day of infamy in Chicago as an example of what happens when people who are unqualified and not prepared to act are entrusted with positions of authority. The irony of that being the date that He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken will name Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State is almost equal to the irony of the lottery numbers drawn in his home state of Illilnois the day after his election.

As a Senator one of Hillary’s few comments regarded foreign affairs in the Clinton administration came prior to the U.S. invasion when questioned about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. She said “Of course we know they have the weapons. Everybody knows that.” So basically what she was saying was that they knew there was a threat but chose to do nothing because it was more politically expedient. That’s not a change we can afford to go back to.