Clinton's arrogance...
Obama's problems with her have already begun. If you think, as I do, that Hillary Clinton has no business being within a country mile of Barack Obama's foreign policy, then you might want to take your blood-pressure meds: this aint pretty.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hillary-plays-hardball-1031238.html
As the price for her so graciously agreeing to "accept" the State Department of the United States Government, she's demanding that Obama purge his loyal staffers who, during the campaign, so effectively pointed out Hillary's lack of real foreign-policy expertise.
She's also insisting that SHE will pick the Department personnel, and that none of her decisions will be filtered through, or influenced by, Obama's foreign-policy people.
The fact that she has already presented these demands to Obama and he still seems to be going forward with her nomination, while giving the State Department to Joe Lieberman's AIPAC-sister is insane.
I don't know if Obama's afraid of her, or what. But she has practically no ability to hurt him from her Senate seat. This Senator ran a despicable trainwreck of a campaign against him. She's not the majority whip. She's not the chair of a powerful committee. What's she going to do if Obama comes to his senses and drops her?
Restate her oft-repeated claim that John McCain would be a better Commander-in-Chief than Obama?
Indulge in some more republican saber-rattling against Iran?
Co-sponsor another amendment to make flagburning a federal crime?
Let Rupert Murdoch hold more fundraisers for her?
Support Joe Lieberman when he runs for the Senate again?
With the democratic nomination all but in hand, she was politically stupid enough to continue her unholy alliance with George Bush and his mayhem opera in Iraq, until it became obvious that it was ruining her politically, when she finally ate her vote to enable the "liberation" of Iraq.
David Bromwich nails it:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/reconciliation-without-tr_b_144864.html
For a lot of good progressives who sent Obama money and who worked their tails off for him, the honeymoon is close to being over, and I guarantee you, for Hillary Clinton, it never started.
She will make huge problems for him, as if he doesn't have enough to deal with already, in the salvage operation for the bushCo lunacy which Clinton aided and abetted.
4 comments:
Indeed, Tanbark. I just do NOT see the payoff for him taking this kind of hit from his constituants. And I'm not talking about the left blogs or just the liberals.... they did no elect him. There are vast amounts of people across this country who elected him, worked their tails off for him and have no clue as the lefty blogs' existence nor do they ID themselves as "liberal". No, this is MUCH larger part of his constituants who are just disheartened as hell that he would betray their fighting to move our country FORWARD.... and being sold down the river with the clintons in the foreign policy position. She really doesn't have any experience and the "sniper fire" incident proves that she lives in some fantasy world as to her own experience. If I saw the upside, and that she won't be stamping her feet about health care is certainly one upside, but there has to be a bigger upside that thaaaaaat alone. What is it? Why is he doing this? It makes NO sense!!
MJ: I had, admittedly, what is probably a foil-hat moment when I wondered if he had cut a deal with her way back when, to get her out of the race before she could come to Denver and continue to help the repubs by raising hell there.
But, by then the democratic leadership had seen enough, and they were lining up to get in the more-or-less tactful dogpile to get her out so Obama could begin to concentrate on McCain and the goopers. I don't think he needed to bribe her; she was running out of money AND her carefully hoarded non-"librul" political capital, at the same time.
If she had continued to play the spoiler, she would have been a political leper. She can't stand that.
I just think that Obama, and evidently his braintrust, have a gross misconception of two things:
1: The "benefits" that she can bring, at State, AND, the problems with leaving her in the Senate...
To which, I ask: WHAT benefits?!!!
For most of the past 6 years, she supported the war. When Bush was so earnestly trying to gin up clusterfuck #2 with Iran, in which to submerge (he hoped!) clusterfuck #1, she dutifully toted the hod and did some saber-rattling of her own, with her talk of "obliterating" Iran and her support for the Kyle-Lieberman amendment.
And the fact is, just like Joe Lieberman, she is a wholly-owned subsidiary of AIPAC, Inc. That, alone, should have kept Obama from putting one atom of Helium into the Clinton trial balloon.
If he nominates her she WILL be passed, since the republicans and neo-cons are practically pissing themselves with joy at the prospect of Obama letting this Trojan Grizzly who only abandoned their war under the pressure of her collapsing presidential ambitions, and who, in the primary campaign, savaged him with a diligence that must have been nearly orgasmic to Karl rove, take over most important spot in his cabinet.
What will she say when she meets with the leaders of the rest of the world, most of whom had the courage and perception to oppose Bush's bloody petro-crusade:
"Hi! ~ I'm the new Secretary of State. Not very different from the pair that preceded me. Me'n Obama's heavy into "change". Whassup?"
2: As for any threat to Obama from her staying in the Senate; again, she's a junior senator. No committee chairmanship. She's not the majority whip. All she could do is hold pressers going after Obama. And don't forget, that nice, comfy, majority the Senate dems will be enjoying rests squarely on Obama's coattails.
I think that if she started unloading on him about his mid-east policy (Remember: Israel, along with, perversely, Saudi Arabia, are the ONLY middle-east countries that want us to stay in Iraq) the Senate leadership would jerk on her chain, instanter. She, herself, may be having a bit of a honeymoon now, but Obama has some VERY tough decisions to make, and some of them are going to piss of AIPAC and the Israelis. If Clinton starts getting in his shit about those, Reid etc, will tell her how the hog ate the cabbage, rather than hang out to dry, the politician who brought them the Senate hammer.
As you say, Myrtle, there is no rhyme or reason to Obama's putting her up for State. And if the account in that article in the UK Independent is true (and they've been a hell of a more on top of these things than OUR media) then, she dictated the terms of accepting the State Department, instead of his doing it.
This is a defeated candidate who ran a sleaze-oriented primary race that was as low-road as anything in our political history. There is little-or-nothing in her resume' that puts her on the same page with Obama, on some incredibly important foreign policy issues that he will have to deal with.
If he nominates her, she'll set up her own political fief at Foggy Bottom and getting her out will cost him far more than dumping her now.
This whole thing is depressing and frightening, at once.
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Yes, it is indeed Tanbark. :-| I think it won't really matter when the economy really tanks.... Damn, that bush is truely the worst evah. Clinton and gates..... and who knows. But maybe he'll be able to save the economy so we can at least pay for all the wars those two will dig up. gahhhh.
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