The Peter Principle: "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his or her level of incompetence."

At this point last year, Hillary Clinton was still seen by about half the people who voted in Democratic primaries (and about two-thirds of the reporters who wrote about them) as the best possible person to become the next President of the United States.

In fact, in a poll taken exactly a year ago by Franklin & Marshall College in the run-up to the Pennsylvania primary the results showed: Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama by 16 points among likely Democratic primary voters, 51% to 35%. Mrs. Clinton leads among voters in virtually every demographic group, with the exceptions being non-whites and voters in Philadelphia.

Hillary, remember, had gone oh-for-February and under the rules of the Democratic Party it was not likely she would be able to overtake Barack by the end of the primary season, but she refused to get out.

It is now clear to me - although I have absolutely no reason to know this to be true - that Hillary agreed not to blow up the Democratic convention in Denver if she became Secretary of State.

Which she is.

And she is dreadful at it.

Need proof? How about the one paper which Conservatives read when they can't tune in Rush Limbaugh. I speak, of course, of the Washington Post which, in its lead editorial on Monday wrote:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton continues to devalue and undermine the U.S. diplomatic tradition of human rights advocacy.

The Post reminded us that when Clinton was in China she dismissed its dismal human rights record by saying "'those issues can't interfere' with economic, security or environmental matters."

Then, after her State Department wrote that Egypt's "respect for human rights remained poor during 2008," she gave Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak the diplomatic equivalent of a wet kiss by saying, "I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family," which, according to the WashPost "will be treasured by al-Qaeda recruiters and anti-American propagandists throughout the Middle East."

Wait! There's more!

In Turkey, when she was asked about her Department's giving Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan the diplomatic equivalent of a Special Agent Jethro Gibbs smack on the back of the head for "strongly criticizing the press and media business figures, particularly following the publishing of reports on alleged [government] corruption" she said:

"Well, my reaction was that … no politician ever likes the press criticizing them." Continued...