Here’s another sign for President-elect Barack Obama that the Russians aren’t interested in going out of their way to mind their manners with the U.S.:

MOSCOW – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev plans to travel this month to Cuba and Venezuela, which have increasing military and trade ties with Moscow.

Hmmm ... weren’t we just talking about Russia?

Add one more name to the list of potential Obama Administration Cabinet appointees: Hillary Clinton.

The president-elect’s former (bitter) primary rival is creating some buzz among the D.C. establishment as her name has surfaced as a possible pick for Secretary of State.

Of course, speculation abounds about whether the pick is a real possibility, or if the Obama transition team is simply floating her name to demonstrate that she is being considered—kind of like the VP thing.

And I heard one pundit last night opine that even if the buzz isn’t legit, it isn’t likely that Obama’s folks will throw cold water on it; they don’t want to signal that she wouldn’t be considered—kind of like the VP thing.

The only thing about the VP thing: Hillary was never really under consideration. But she appears to be for this—or, at least, for something: The New York senator had a hush-hush meeting with the soon-to-be-ex Illinois senator about what role she might play in his administration earlier this week.

So it’s a waiting game—his folks don’t want to extend the offer unless they’re sure it would be accepted, and she doesn’t want to seem too eager in case she is passed over again. Kind of like high school kids trying to find prom dates.

But pundits say this has a different feel about it. And the veracity of the rumor may actually be demonstrated by what isn’t being said: Gloria Borger described to Anderson Cooper last night how, since talk has increased around the possibility this week, her sources have gone “radio silent.”

Pros of this pick: Hillary does have more foreign policy experience than Obama does, and choosing her would certainly evidence his respect for her as a policy heavyweight.

But he’d be passing over a bunch of people who have more foreign policy experience than she does. And one has to wonder, much as we did with the VP talk, whether she would be willing and able to accept and advance his administration’s policies as her own, even when they differed from her own. I have said before that when you wanted to be president yourself, it’s difficult to set aside all the things you see in the mirror that you believe qualified you for that run. Could she effectively substitute his judgment for her own?

And then there’s that other issue about the guy who actually was president. It’s hard to imagine that he wouldn’t be making the rounds, whispering how they did it back in his day.

From Hillary’s perspective, I’m not sure I see why this would be an attractive opportunity. Sure, it would be something new and different; it would provide new challenges at a time when the challenges at home (jobs, the economy, the New York state budget) are getting tougher. But her hallmark has always been domestic policy. Would she really walk away from her post in the Senate, where she would wield more power than ever before and where she could have an open line to the White House in terms of helping to shape the health care reform that she has pursued for more than 15 years?

Maybe it will happen. But I just think it would require a complete subversion of the dominant paradigms in Hillary Clinton’s professional and personal life.

If it does happen, there will be two points of delicious irony in it: One, Bill Richardson will be one of the also-rans passed over. I’m sure Hillary Clinton wouldn’t hate that, since he got the experience that qualifies him for the position at State while serving in her husband’s Cabinet—but then turned around and endorsed Obama in March.

Two, she actually would be answering the phone at 3 a.m.