Amid talk that she "toils in the shadows" and that her use of regional envoys diminishes the power of the State Department, Secretary Clinton might be trying to raise her profile by hiring Sidney Blumenthal, formerly an advisor at the Bill Clinton White House and a longtime journalist.

In reporting the news on FP's The Cable, my colleague Laura Rozen described Blumenthal as "a longtime confidant of the Clinton family and a fierce defender of Bill Clinton's presidential legacy." Perhaps his hiring (which hasn't yet been finalized) is an offensive move in countering the perception that Clinton is too behind the scenes, outsourcing the "heavy lifting" to her regional envoys.

(Blumenthal would work on Clinton's speechwriting team, an official told the New York Times.)