Obama Fulfilling Campaign Promise by Hiring Clinton

by: Matt Stoller

Tue Dec 02, 2008 at 18:19


I find the traditional media intolerable for its fake little dramas.  Obama for instance promised a centrist administration that took in points of view from all sides, and he is delivering on that promise.  I didn't like what he said at the time, but I understood he said it.  It is not therefore a betrayal of the left that he is doing exactly what he said he'd do.  The narrative that Obama was an ideologically progressive was nearly always in contradiction to his own statements and political choices, as Chris noted on Hardball last night.

The drama over Hillary Clinton is similarly ridiculous.  In one primary debate, in what was a high-profile moment, Obama snarkily noted he'd want Clinton to advise him should he become President.

And so he did exactly what he promised he'd do during the campaign.  He chose Hillary Clinton as someone who would advise him on foreign policy.
Matt Stoller :: Obama Fulfilling Campaign Promise by Hiring Clinton

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Obama Fulfilling Campaign Promise by Hiring Clinton | 19 comments
Never thought the day would come (4.00 / 3)
when I'd agree 100% with Matt Stoller! :)

I agree completely.  Obama is NOT betraying the left!  And if the left wants something from him, they have to ask. Organize and ask, but ask!

Just as the left (and anyone else, really) would have to do with any administration...

QT

Visit the Obama Project


WindOnWater.net



the voices are diverse (0.00 / 0)
I just wish that there were more left-wing voices in the economic and national security discussions. The senior leadership in the House, and the senior White House staff, we seem good there. The senior economic team isn't too bad, given Barnes. The senior foreign policy team includes Gates, which is bad, and no left-wing advisors.

So, I guess really, fire Summers and give me a progressive Secretary of Defense, and I might be fine within a year.

It is funny (4.00 / 5)
but honestly this idea that anyone associated with the Clinton administration is tainted is bizarre. Many of the Obama hires publicly broke with the Clintons to support him: Greg Craig, Susan Rice, Eric Holder, and Bill Richardson to name some.  Many of the people he has hired chose him over Hillary Clinton for a reason. He doesn't have the baggage and I think he is more liberal than she is, especially if you look at his Chicago years. He is a much better communicator and did oppose the Iraq War before it began.

But yes, Obama is not super progressive. He is a mainstream Democrat. Although some good news is that he is vetting openly lesbian labor activist Mary Beth Maxwell. Link here: http://marcambinder.theatlanti...

I think that he is more likely to have liberal appointees for domestic issues because Americans want to see a progressive enacted on that front. I still think America is hawkish when it comes to national security and his selections reflect that.

The latest poll has Obama with over a 75% approval rating so I think the media is just trying to push a story. Per usual.

Um... (0.00 / 0)
Where you around during the primaries when all of the so-called liberal and progressive bloggers and the media kept villifying everything from the Clinton administration? Obama himself said that people were "bitter" because Clinton and Bush failed them.  Also, Obama's loudest supporters condemned Hillary because she associated with the "worst" people from her husband's administration.

I agree with you that Obama is a mainstream Democrat, but that is not what most of the progressive and liberal chatter about him said during the primaries.  http://dissentingjustice.blogs...

People now want to revise history.  Obama was vague enough to "appear" left, right or moderate, but I always knew he'd be center to right.  The man voted for the Schiavo legislation.  This does not suggest to me someone who takes risks.  I believe that Bill Clinton was spot on: Obama's so-called oppposition to the war, which got him enough leftwing votes to beat Clinton -- was just a "fairytale."  

PS: I am glad that opinion polls determine whether a topic is worthy of debate or not.  Bush had about 80 percent approval ratings during parts of his presidency.  Great.  

[ Parent ]
heh (4.00 / 1)
You stumbled upon the wrong site. PUMA PAC is that way ----->
[ Parent ]
Is she really so different than him (4.00 / 4)
in foreign policy?  Much of the differences during the campaign were exaggerations.  The famous meeting with dictators without preconditions was a brilliant thinking-on-your-feet grab-the-advantage leap on his part and a classic mistake on hers, but when it came down to it there was little difference between the two, they both believe in preparations before meeting, and she doesn't believe in preconditions in the Bush sense of the word.  Hillary's hawkishness, I believe, was always a matter of her constantly running for President and feeling the need to prove herself ready to be Commander in Chief.  If Barack had let her make history by becoming the first female Secretary of Defense then we would have something to yell about. But he has effectively parceled off her perhaps faux hawk leanings from her true embrace of diplomacy as a guiding vision.  All you have to do is look at her Senate floor speech in support of her vote for the War to see the schizophrenia in her positions.  

Barack has taken the Hillary he agrees with, the one the most to the left, and said okay, that's what you are going to do and that's who you are going to be.  And by giving her the job, he is offering a path to make history by securing a lasting peace between Israel, Palestine, and the Arab World.  Their differences in foreign policy as it relates to Diplomacy are minimal.  Hillary may be a little more pro-Israel and Barack a little more sympathetic to Palestine - which makes them the perfect combo.  And by making her SoS, he has effectively reined in Bill to the extent that he can now become a roving Ambassador, something which would have been quite limited without the disclosures and limitations he has agreed to.  He is at both their disposal in a way impossible with any other selection.  Hillary's considerable talents are now focussed on Peace, not War, and her lasting legacy riding on her ability to achieve something which is both Progressive and necessary for the stability of the World.  It's a brilliant choice.

great comments (0.00 / 0)
I think you might be on to something.
[ Parent ]
Please consider what you are saying. (0.00 / 0)
You are saying that Obama has ranked Hillary Clinton's legacy above the good of the country. Why should Obama or we care about HRC's legacy? There are more important things at stake. Devoting the entire office of Secretary of State to the redemption of HRC is ridiculous. And what exactly makes you believe that Clinton has been appointed (or annointed) to make peace in the ME? Rahm Emanuel? Her support for cluster bombs?

Sometimes we come up with crazy scenarios when it is best just to honestly survey the evidence. If in fact you are right, then we are in great trouble. Obama's job is to be a good Pres. and think about the country first. If all these crazy narratives are running through his mind, he's going to be a rotten Pres.

[ Parent ]
Her legacy? (0.00 / 0)
Maybe she choose her because of the benefit she would bring to his government and the country? As he said in the video he was open to her participating in his governing one way or another. he choose where she wanted her and she accepted. end of story.
[ Parent ]
How is it (0.00 / 0)
that you think you can get from the fact that she made far right claims about her own diplomatic approach, to her being on the left with regards to diplomacy?  Sure they both believe in preparations, but that was never at issue.  What is at issue is whether she wanted Iran to make substantive concessions before negotiations began, to make substantive concessions for nothing in return.  If she did it shows a terrible lack of understanding of how diplomacy works, and puts her squarely in the middle of the PNAC crowd.  I am not aware of where she said something to ameliorate her comments about preconditions.

But even if she has, the most that does is show that she is not as right wing as she made herself sound during the primaries.  How do you get from that to her having leftist tendecies in foreign affairs?  I really don't get how the argument is supposed to work here.

[ Parent ]
Oh Please... (0.00 / 0)
Candidates often say they would take "advise" from one another -- even candidates from opposing parties.  But this is not a "promise" to appoint someone to a Cabinet position.

Furthermore, the media attention -- what little exists -- on this issue focuses rightfully on the fact that Obama went to great lengths to discredit Clinton's foreign policy experience AND judgment.  He belittled her by saying all she did as First Lady was travel around the globe for "tea."  Now, she's visited 80 countries and has tons of crediblity around the world.  He also said that her war vote shows that she lacks judgment.  Well, if Clinton lacks judgment on the most important foreign policy vote during her Senate career, why make her the Cabinet member in charge of advising the president on foreign policy and implementing that policy as well?  Only blind followers of Obama cannot see these contradictions.  http://dissentingjustice.blogs...

Now, I respect Clinton and believe she will do a great job.  I also agree with Obama that people often say things they do not mean during campaigns.  But I also recall that he was supposed to operate on a different level.  Now, I guess, he is more of the same.

Finally, the Left was duped by their own wishful thinking.  Plain and simple.  They hated the Clintons so much that they went to great lengths to prop up Obama.  They distorted his record as a leftist in order to shame Clinton and damage her among the party's progressive wing.  They treated her in a highly sexist fashion.  They called her a hawk, a racist, and a petty insider.  Obama, by contrast, was portrayed as pious, peaceful, and an outsider.  They had no basis for saying this about Obama, other than that's what his campaign said he stood for.  Now, they are paying the price for worshipping, rather than analyzing, a candidate.  And as I said during the primaries, a victory that relies upon sexism will not produce progressive results.  I am enjoying watching Leftists experience a collective head explosion.  It's quite thrilling. http://dissentingjustice.blogs...

Get over it (0.00 / 0)
Clinton lost and now is working for Obama.Bitter pill to swallow I know but you need to get over it eventually. Clinton was to the right of obama and still is, but she is now under obama and can be fired if she strays from the policies that he sets (which I believe she wont stray, because her campaigning for him after the primaries showed that she can get over it and be a great team player unlike some of her supporters).
[ Parent ]
"I'm looking forward to you advising me as well" (0.00 / 0)
is not quite, "Will you be my Secretary of State"? As Jeremy Scahill writes in a recent article, "We were told repeatedly during the campaign that Obama was right on the premiere foreign policy issue of our day - the Iraq war." This is how his campaign got started, and Obama used his stance against the war to define himself. So why then would he hire someone defined negatively by the war vote, wrong on the defining foreign policy issue of our day, as the Secretary of State? For the same reason he would hire those partly responsible for the economic collapse to head the economy.

It seems to me that there are only two logical answers here. Either Obama was misrepresenting his true views, or Obama has been grossly influenced by Doris Kearns Goodwin's book, to tragic effect. Either answer does not bode well for the next four years.

Well (0.00 / 0)
He was asked why he was employing so many Clinton people(shows the hand wringing and media CW was the same back then as it is now) and he says he is looking froward to Hillary doing the same. Read it in context. Also as pointed out above most of these so called "Clintonites" supported HIM in the primaries, so much for being Clinton people when they did not even support Clinton her self in the primaries.
[ Parent ]
150 Congressional Dems voted against the war. (0.00 / 0)
Where are they? They are being shut out, as are those Republicans who showed courage: Lugar, Chafee. This has to be conscious. The same names show up whenever a crucial vote occurs, and they are continually shut out, by the Dems as well as by the Republicans. Obama might be filling his govt with experienced people, but they are the people who have shown the least moral courage during the past 8 years.
[ Parent ]
obviously, I meant Hagel, not Lugar (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
THANK YOU!!! (4.00 / 1)
This is the first common sense diary I have seen on the front page regarding Obama's picks I have seen thus far.
What is at issue (0.00 / 0)
is not betrayal, and it is not her competence.  If you are getting worked up about a politician not doing everything he says, grow up.  If you think she was picked because of displayed competence in diplomacy, I simply don't know what to say to you, given that she hasn't, as far as I am aware, ever taken part in any diplomatic talks, had a job that dealt with diplomacy or had any experience on a foriegn relations type committee (except for the limited diplomatic experience someone gets from being on armed services.)

Imagine this were another country we were looking at.  The new leader appoints people who disagree with him ideologically.  How would we interpret this?  We would interpret it as the new leader creating a coalition government.  Obama is both president elect and head of a ideologically fractured party.  If we were treating Obama like we would any other political leader we would recognize that he is bringing Clinton in so as to cement unity within the party.  She was not brought in because she has shown expertise.  If Obama wanted expertise he would have promoted someone from within State, hired a foriegn policy intellectual or one of Bill's former undersecretaries of State.

And it isn't such a big deal that she doesn't have the relevant expertise, or a small amount of it relative to lots and lots of people who live in DC.  She will learn on the job, and hopefully she will have knowledgeable people around her.  And it is not such a big deal that she has disagreed with Obama about foreign affairs in the past.  If you can't tell that she, and most democrats, became hawks so as to not get tossed out of office in 2002 and 2004, then you haven't been paying attention.  The DLC in particular tends to support what already has public support.  

So I agree that we don't need to lose our heads, but people shouldn't react to the 'Obama betrayed us' by making the equally absurd claim that because he made a very common joke in a primary debate, he had said he would appoint Clinton to State.  Or that Clinton is somehow very qualified for the job.  He didn't, she isn't, he didn't need to, and she doesn't need to.

This is what the "Progressive" narrative should be (0.00 / 0)
narrative:

Our house is on fire. We reach for a bucket of water (Obama). We know intellectually that the bucket of water is not going to accomplish squat, but we do it anyway because we are desperate.

But boy will we be pissed if that wasn't water in the bucket, but ethanol!

By the way, the house is still engulfed in flames...

/narrative

Obama Fulfilling Campaign Promise by Hiring Clinton | 19 comments
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