Secretary of State Clinton??

[Gaspar]

She is the very last person he will consider for Sec-O-State.  A leak from her own office is the source of the rumor.

I like Dick Morris's take on the situation:


Hillary Clinton is the epitome of the entrenched Washington political establishment that Obama so effectively challenged and so thoroughly disdained. That's what makes her consideration so puzzling. But it's not just her old politics that should immediately disqualify her. With her out-of-control husband freelancing with foreign governments to raise money for his cronies, his foundation, and for speaking fees for himself, the potential for serious conflicts of interest are incalculable and dangerous. We don't know precisely what the former president has been up to; it's all secret. For more than eight years, Bill Clinton has adamantly refused to disclose the fat-cat donors to his library and foundation. Because of a computer error in the Clinton Library, the New York Sun inadvertently learned that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Dubai, the U.A.E, Kuwait, and Morocco have chipped in. But what about other governments or businesses?

Can we actually afford to have a Secretary of State whose husband secretly raises money from foreign governments who have strong interests in U.S. foreign policy decisions? That's what we'd have with the Clintons.

For Obama to choose Hillary would mean that he was ignoring the long overdue and strict ethical and professional standards that he claims will be imposed on all appointees.

Or is Hillary going to have a separate standard of her own? A substantially lower one? Already, it appears that the Obama rule that "if you leak, you're gone" doesn't apply to Hillary.

But does anyone really believe that Obama would appoint any other person to State whose spouse had publicly endorsed a controversial foreign leader for a U.N. position that the State Department opposed? That's just what Clinton did in the corrupt former Soviet state of Kazakhstan, where human rights violations are rampant. Clinton used his prestige as former President to set up a dinner meeting for Canadian billionaire Frank Giustra with President Nursultan Nazarbayev, known best for eliminating all opposition in his country. Giustra wanted to buy some of the country's valuable uranium rights. Although he had no experience in this region, two days later, Giustra was awarded a contract which the New York Times termed a "monster deal...[that] suddenly transformed the company into the world's largest uranium producers." During his very short visit, Clinton publicly promoted Nazarbayev for chairman of a U.N. committee - a position that the United States government, and his own wife, had vehemently opposed. That didn't stop Bill. And, it worked out well for him and his pal. After the deal was closed, Clinton's foundation received a $31 million contribution from Giustra and a pledge of another $100 million and half of all of his future mining profits. That's not peanuts. It was a win-win situation for everyone - except for the United States government's interests.

Question: Did Kazakhstan also contribute to Clinton's foundation? And, if so, what did they want in return for it?

Because there's more: While Hillary was a presidential candidate, Giustra arranged a meeting with a Kazakhstan government representative and Clinton at his Chappaqua home to discuss the government's plan to buy a 10% stake in Westinghouse. Now why would they want to talk to Bill about that? Did they feel that they had a special entrée to the former president?  Sounds like it. Clinton initially denied any such meeting, but later admitted it after the government representative, who had coincidentally also handled the uranium matter, produced a photo clearly showing him at the Clinton home with the former president.

Is this what the husband of a Secretary of State - or even a Senator - should be doing? Clandestinely meeting with representatives of oppressive regimes? Was he advising them about how to finesse their investment? The public needs to know what this was all about.

Because one thing is for sure: Bill definitely won't change and there's no telling who else he's been hitting up for money.

Remember his partnership with the Emir of Dubai and his other billionaire buddy Ron Burkle? He's already made more than $10 million on that deal and was secretly advising Dubai on how to get the Port Deal approved in Washington while Hillary was publicly opposing it. He helped the anti-Semitic Dubai create a public relations image as a modern Arab state while it kidnapped and enslaved three and four year old male children to use as camel jockeys.
 
He's lobbied for other favorite projects, too. After he was paid $800,000 for speeches by Colombian Free Trade interests, the former president picked up the phone and called several democratic congressmen to advocate passage of the treaty. He's never registered as a lobbyist or a foreign agent, but that hasn't stopped him.  Nor will it in the future.

The potential problems are obvious.

The husband of a Secretary of State cannot be in business with the head of a foreign country with growing interests in the U.S.

Instead of a rogue co-president, Clinton would be a rogue co-Secretary of State. And that's something Obama can't afford.

But aside from being the poster child of the status quo, Hillary is simply not qualified for the job. She has no foreign policy credentials, other than visiting eighty countries as First Lady, where she usually toured schools and hospitals with no diplomatic missions. And, of course, we know her assertions about dodging sniper fire in Bosnia and playing an important role in the Irish Peace Process were just fantasies.  

Some commentators suggest that the Secretary of State position has become a "woman's" seat and that Hillary is the logical next Secretary. But the previous women, Albright and Rice, were not ingénues who needed on the job training. Both were experienced diplomats with PhD's in their fields. Hillary had none of this background. She didn't even have national security clearance at the Clinton White House. Obama needs more than this.
 
Finally, the colossal leaking by Clinton and her allies of her likely appointment, designed to box the President-elect into a corner, should teach Obama a lesson: the Clintons will try to outflank him on every turn and undermine him when he gets in their way.  These are no partners for a new president to have on a world stage.

So is the champion of hope and change going to appoint the woman that he derided as the ultimate apostle of the status quo, whose husband travels the world trailing clouds of conflicts of interest in his wake?

Isn't that just what the old politicians would do?

By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN  

Published on DickMorris.com on November 18, 2008

[USRufnex]

Let's see.... Dick's a D*** (Morris that is)...

I'd rather see Hillary as Sec of State than as some sort of healthcare czarina... she's the  heathcare industry lobbyists' dream....

With Hillary as Secretary of State, "the Bill" will have to operate with some sort of "transparency."

And the Clintons are a natural magnet (target?) for the media... SoS is a diplomatic post... see Colin Powell...

http://dickipedia.org/dick.php?title=Hillary_Clinton

[waterboy]

Dick Morris? Geez what a putz. Sean Hannity's bestest friend.

People continue to underestimate the cleverness of this new manager. Obama knows that of all his opponents, Hillary was the most dangerous. He certainly doesn't underestimate her talents, her power or her ability to attract attention.  Nor is she unaware of his intentions with this trial balloon. I can't believe no one has used the timeworn phrase for this possible choice of Hillary as SOS. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer".

Ruff you're right. This keeps her occupied and maybe even out of country while healthcare and other third rail issues can be dealt with. She's capable of doing the job and if she doesn't want it, no harm done. Meanwhile as the press and Buchanan, Hannity etc. focus their enmity on Hillary and the alleged lack of change....change is effected.

Note: dang dyslexia

[pmcalk]

For those keeping track, looks like Daschle for health & human services.  Napolitano for Homeland Security.

My guess is there will be a republican choice for Defense.  Obama promised some republicans in his cabinet, and this seems like the most likely place.  Maybe Hagel.

[Gaspar]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

Dick Morris? Geez what a putz. Sean Hannity's bestest friend.

People continue to underestimate the cleverness of this new manager. Obama knows that of all his opponents, Hillary was the most dangerous. He certainly doesn't underestimate her talents, her power or her ability to attract attention.  Nor is she unaware of his intentions with this trial balloon. I can't believe no one has used the timeworn phrase for this possible choice of Hillary as SOS. "Keep your enemies close and your friends closer".

Ruff you're right. This keeps her occupied and maybe even out of country while healthcare and other third rail issues can be dealt with. She's capable of doing the job and if she doesn't want it, no harm done. Meanwhile as the press and Buchanan, Hannity etc. focus their enmity on Hillary and the alleged lack of change....change is effected.

Yeah you're right!  After all Dick was responsible for getting Bill Clinton elected.

[Gaspar]

Dick does have a good play-by-play going this morning:


Move One:  Obama Makes An Offer

At their meeting last week, Obama seems to have discussed the possibility of appointing Hillary to State.  He may not have overtly offered the job and may have done so out of politeness, but he must have raised the prospect and discussed it with her.  

Move Two: Clinton Leaks the "Offer"

Whether or not Obama really offered her the job, Hillary tried to lock him into the appointment by leaking the "offer."  The leak would not have come from Obama and must have come from the New York Senator.  It was likely an attempt to force Obama to give her the job by making it public.  Now, if he says no, he will have lots of explaining to do to Hillary's famed "18 million voters," those who backed her candidacy in 2008.

    Move Three: Obama Puts Out Mikva To Throw Cold Water on Appointment

President-elect Obama, sensing that he was being boxed into making the appointment, and possibly angered by Hillary's brazen tactics, likely suggested to his buddy former President Clinton counsel Abner Mikva that he discuss the drawbacks of the appointment in public.  Mikva, a former federal judge who gave up a lifetime appointment to serve as President Clinton's first White House counsel, dislikes the Clintons and spoke privately about needing to take a shower after he resigned one year into the first term.  Mikva spoke in public about the conflicts of interest between Bill's foreign activities and his refusal to release his foundation and library donors and Hillary's possible appointment.  The message to the Clintons was: this could get embarrassing.

Move Four: Bill Offers to Come Clean, Partially

Responding indirectly to the Mikva statement, former president Clinton offered to cease some of his foreign activities, vet others, and submit his "major" donors to Obama and ethics office scrutiny.  In a hilarious move, Clinton named best friend Bruce Lindsay and former counsel Cheryl Mills to negotiate with his own former chief of staff and now Obama transition head John Podesta on the disclosures and ethics limits.
     
Move Five:  Hillary Has Her Aides Talk Up the Appointment

Continuing her desperate efforts to get the job, Hillary likely had her aides issue statements about how thrilled she was at the prospect of doing all the good she could do as Secretary of State.  But they were all still careful to offer an out by saying that she was torn between her love of serving the world and her love of shaping health care reform in the Congress.
   
Move Six: Obama Gets Kennedy to Give Hillary an Out

Meanwhile, Obama, probably thinking more and more about the downside of appointing Hillary, got Ted Kennedy to offer Hillary the job he had denied her when she asked for it last week – a legislative role in shaping health care reform.  Hillary had asked Kennedy to appoint her to head a subcommittee on health care reform, a request the Massachusetts Senator turned down.  Now, likely on prompting from Obama, he offered her the chairmanship of a working group on health insurance reform.  The offer was probably designed by Obama to offer Hillary a graceful way to decline the State Department rather than admit that it was Bill's financial dealings that made the job impossible.

Where is this all heading?  In the world of Hillary and Bill predictions are almost impossible.  But Obama and the world would be well served if Hillary did not get the job.

[rwarn17588]

quote:Originally posted by Gaspar

Dick does have a good play-by-play going this morning:

That's all fine and good, except that Dick keeps getting things wrong. Seriously, he had a terrible track record through the 2008 election season.

Having him as a pundit would be like having Herm Edwards guiding your football team to the playoffs.

[Gaspar]

quote:Originally posted by rwarn17588

quote:Originally posted by Gaspar

Dick does have a good play-by-play going this morning:

That's all fine and good, except that Dick keeps getting things wrong. Seriously, he had a terrible track record through the 2008 election season.

Having him as a pundit would be like having Herm Edwards guiding your football team to the playoffs.

Yeah, I think he lost much of his mojo this election cycle.

[USRufnex]

quote:Originally posted by Gaspar



Yeah you're right!  After all Dick was responsible for getting Bill Clinton elected.

No.  David Wilhelm, James Carville, George Stephanopoulos, and Paul Begala had roles in getting Bill Clinton elected..... after 1994, slick Willie called on Dick-the-toe-sucker to help him get re-elected...

Dick Morris, the great proponent of "triangulation," is the biggest and most arrogant backstabbing POS ever... Dick Morris has a bigger problem telling the truth than the Clintons, which is hard to do, IMO...

http://mediamatters.org/items/200405040006

http://www.newshounds.us/2005/08/11/dick_morris_clinton_book_is_a_backstabbing_bio.php

Dick Morris' Clinton Book Is a Back-Stabbing Bio
Reported by Judy - August 11, 2005

The only way to mistake Dick Morris' Rewriting History for a balanced attempt at a biography of former first lady and now Senator Hillary Clinton would be to read Ed Klein#65533;s hatchet-job The Truth About Hillary first. Then Morris' book might seem reasonable.

Rewriting History (New York: Regan Books 2004) purports to be a corrective to Clinton#65533;s autobiography Living History. Morris attempts to make the case that Clinton has constructed a false image of herself as a wife, parent, and concerned citizen in order to cover up what Morris calls her "sinister" side.

Constructing an image is something all politicians do. Morris should know that. As a political consultant, he has helped many do it, including Bill Clinton both as governor of Arkansas and president of the United States. When Morris talks about Hillary Clinton's image, however, he does his best to make it sound like she is doing something evil. Morris consistently selects words with ominous connotations such as "chilling," "trickery," "hide," "secretiveness," "devious," "opportunist." No less than four of the nine chapters in the book begin with the phrase "Hiding Hillary" to underscore Morris point that Clinton cannot be trusted because she is deliberately hiding something about herself.

In Morris world, any trait that is laudatory in a man is a sign of evil in Clinton. Dedication to a cause? That's inflexibility in Clinton. Ambition? That's opportunistic in Clinton. A church-going Methodist with strong values? Make that "moralistic" for Clinton. Management skill? Clinton has it but hides it deliberately.

No matter what she does, Clinton cannot win. Did she make a mistake? It was because she rejected Morris advice. Did she want to follow Morris advice to run negative ads in one of Bill Clinton's Arkansas gubernatorial race? Yes, and that proves she's a wily politician and who likes a wily politician?

Morris' criticisms of Clinton range from the petty to the outrageous. He criticizes her "ever-changing hairdos" (p.11). Good grief! In the 21st century, who cares how a woman politician wears her hair? More seriously, Morris implies that Clinton is capable of murdering anyone who crosses her, saying once (p. 229) that none of her close friends discusses Clinton#65533;s private life "and still lives" and (p. 230) that if someone did speak of it without authorization "she'd be floating, figuratively, face down in the Hudson River." For conservative cognoscenti, this is a reference to the ridiculous and totally unfounded assertion that Clinton murdered former White House counsel Vince Foster and then dumped his body in a Washington, D.C., park.

For proof that Clinton is hiding part of her life, Morris relies on secret meetings he had with both Clintons while serving as a political consultant. To hear Morris tell it, he was present at every significant moment in Senator Clinton's life and every one of them should have been included in her autobiography. The fact that she omitted these key turning points, conveniently witnessed by Dick Morris, proves she is out to hide something, he argues. Morris obviously has an overly inflated sense of his own importance to the Clintons.

Furthermore, in discussing these private meetings with the Clintons, Morris uses direct quotations. Aren't we lucky that he has a perfect memory that can accurately recall quotes from years ago that support his version of events?

As an author for Regan Books, ...Morris relies on the tried-and-true writing techniques of other right-wing authors. He leaves out information that would put Clinton's actions in context with what other politicians do. She had a "fanatical need for secrecy," but her fight to keep the health care task force meetings secret is not weighed against Dick Cheney's fight to keep secret his energy task force meetings. She had the "audacity" to run for senator in New York, but that is not weighed against Robert Kennedy's candidacy from that state. He talks on and on about the Clintons' marriage as a sham, but when it comes to Rudy Giuliani, he only has a "bad marriage." Morris-the-toe-sucker does not describe his own marriage to Eileen McGann, his co-author and wife, but perhaps "sham" would be appropriate there, as well.

[Gaspar]

Not really sure at this point who this spells the end for, but it will be tenuous.  He will either have a house full of Billary or Obama is, in a purely Machiavellian sense, keeping her close and under control.  

If he can keep her globe-hopping until she fumbles, he will eliminate her as both a presidential contender in 2012 and as a "Brutus" in the Senate.

Extremely Poor or extremely wise judgment?

I'm inclined to think this is a very smart and cunning decision.  I may end up liking this guy.

Time will tell.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081121/D94J7UM01.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama plans to nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state after Thanksgiving, a new milestone for the former first lady and a convergence of two political forces who fought hard for the presidency.

[we vs us]

Hillary accepts; Richardson is Commerce, and Geithner is Treasury.

quote:  By Robert Schroeder Last update: 3:09 p.m. EST Nov. 21, 2008  

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, New York Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner and former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson have all accepted posts in President-elect Barack Obama's cabinet, according to media reports. Clinton accepted the position of secretary of state, the New York Times reported. Richardson is in line to become Commerce secretary and Geithner was picked to be Treasury secretary, NBC News reported.