Posted by Jed Lewison on Mon Nov 17, 2008 at 8:13 AM Pacific

The Vetting Of Bill Clinton

The NYT says HRC as SOS is looking like an increasingly serious possibility:

WASHINGTON -- President-elect Barack Obama's advisers have begun reviewing former President Bill Clinton's finances and activities to see whether they would preclude the appointment of his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as secretary of state, Democrats close to the situation said Sunday.

The examination of the former president suggests how seriously Mr. Obama is considering bringing his onetime rival for the Democratic presidential nomination into his cabinet.

The two most bizarre sentences in the article have nothing to do with Bill, however. First, we have:

He met with Mrs. Clinton in Chicago on Thursday to talk about the prospect and word quickly filtered out.

And then second:

Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton have kept their conversations tightly held, but that silence has only convinced some associates that the prospect is serious.

Hmmm. Obama met with Clinton and word quickly filtered out, but they have both kept their conversations tightly held? Something doesn't compute.