Would Clinton’s State Team Include Obama Thinkers?

[ProSense]

Would Clinton’s State Team Include Obama Thinkers?

Foreign Policy World Fears Clinton Will Take Old Guard to Foggy Bottom

By Spencer Ackerman 11/21/08 12:48 PM

With Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) almost certain to become President-elect Barack Obama’s secretary of state, some foreign-policy experts in the Obama orbit are expressing frustration.

Clinton herself isn’t so much the problem, they say. It’s the loyalists and traditional thinkers Clinton is likely to bring into the State Dept. if she becomes secretary.

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In addition, some Obama loyalists wonder whether the same people who attacked Obama on foreign policy during the primaries can implement Obama’s agenda from State Dept. perches. “Look, Clinton and Obama are both smart people,” said one Democratic official who would not speak for the record, “and I’m sure their one-on-one relationship would be OK. But when you hire a Clinton, you hire more than just that one person, you get the entire package.” If Clinton becomes secretary of state, it’s possible that the fissures between her loyalists and Obama’s would be a significant undercurrent of the administration’s foreign-policy decision-making.

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“Foreign policy is probably where Clinton and Obama differ the most,” said the Democratic official. “They just have fundamentally different instincts. On the big decisions, Obama can and will certainly call the shots, but the consistency of follow-through could really be a problem. And the instincts on the smaller decisions will be very different. Cohesion of our foreign policy could suffer.”

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The responsibility conferred on those offices, and the expertise developed and deepened by their occupants, shape the future luminaries of U.S. foreign policy. Susan Rice, for example, served as assistant secretary of state for African affairs in Bill Clinton’s second term and is now a leading contender for a top job in the Obama administration.

“These are your foreign-policy change agents,” said the Democratic foreign-policy expert.

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Some Obama loyalists pointed to a 2007 memo written by Harvard’s Samantha Power — a former leading Obama adviser who resigned from the campaign after making an untoward remark about Clinton — that summarized the Obama campaign’s ideological meta-critique of many of the people who might staff a Clinton-run State Dept. Titled “Conventional Wisdom vs. the Change We Need,” the campaign released Power’s memo to the press after the Clinton campaign labeled Obama naive for proposing negotiations with dictators without preconditions; for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons on terrorist training camps; and for proposing highly-conditioned military strikes in Pakistan against senior Al Qaeda operatives.

“It was Washington’s conventional wisdom that led us into the worst strategic blunder in the history of U.S. foreign policy,” writes Power, who declined to speak for this story. “The rush to invade Iraq was a position advocated by not only the Bush Administration, but also by editorial pages, the foreign policy establishment of both parties, and majorities in both houses of Congress. Those who opposed the war were often labeled weak, inexperienced and even naïve.”

Some in the Obama camp are left wondering whether picking Clinton as secretary of state represents an acquiescence to such conventional wisdom. “That memo was emblematic in many ways of the difference between the two groups,” said a Democratic foreign-policy expert and Obama loyalist. Asked about the ideological implications of the difference, the expert said, “The early Obama supporters were generally much more opposed to Iraq and you can draw out assumptions from there.”

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The Democratic official noted Obama’s stated intrigue with presidential scholar Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book “Team of Rivals,” which documented the ultimately-constructive fissures in Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet, but rejected the comparison.

“The situation is fundamentally different today than in Lincoln’s time,” the official said. “The agencies are much more vast, so the people under the secretary, who aren’t directly controllable by the president, are a much bigger part of the equation these days. And when they are part of a group like the Clinton folks, it’s a real issue. Besides, even the Lincoln cabinet was much more dysfunctional than Goodwin’s book portrayed.”

[jobycom]

1. Spencer Ackerman--Said he would "skullfuck" a terrorist's skull

to prove how much he hated terrorists. Was fired from "The New Republic" for insubordination. Has alternately strongly supported the war and strongly opposed it.

His only schtick is making noise. He's the journalistic twin of Dennis Miller. I couldn't read past the by-line.

[karynnj]

9. Given TNR 's infatuation with Lieberman,

is {Was fired from "The New Republic" for insubordination.) a real problem. The comment if he made it is disgusting.

The questions asked here are good ones. I assume that many of the political state department people would be the same under any SoS and many likely served in the Clinton administration - but there was a difference in Obama's and HRC's foreign policy team - if Obama can take a team of rivals approach, maybe HRC will be pushed to do something similar. It would be a shame if someone as good as Susan Rice is not given a good job. That not getting it could be because she supported Obama is just weird.

[jobycom]

10. Good point.

Not sure what's up with Rice. I didn't think she'd be SoS, though. I thought NSA, or maybe a deputy position. SoS is a glam job. It's sales. That's the one position you want filled by a superstar. Other nations have to feel good about the pick. Picking Clinton makes them more likely to respect Obama. Not that they don't, already, but still many world leaders--friends or enemies--will see Obama as inexperienced on world affairs. He's likely to get the out-of-the-loop treatment until he proves himself, with other leaders going straight to the diplomats or advisers. Clinton won't get that treatment, and so Obama himself will be taken more seriously.

Plus, Obama is so new on the scene that some governments--especially the non-democracies that aren't used to the quick turnovers--may see him as completely knew on the scene, and therefore they might see the US as in complete transition. It's common for other nations to push us a bit every time we change leaders, but they do it even more when we change parties. China smacked Bush pretty hard when he first took over, and everyone pushed Clinton around early on. Having such a recognized name and face standing behind the new leader gives other nations a sense of continuity. And, it's continuity with the last good government we've had, not the nutjobs we've had for eight years.

I think all that is why Obama MIGHT (still waiting on it to be official) choose Clinton. That, and he's debated with her for so long he knows her better than he knows his own advisers. They've told him what he wants to hear, she's told him what she was thinking. He knows her mind well by now. And despite a lot of rhetoric, their big differences on foreign policy were questions of degree, not essence.

As for whether she'd pick his supporters in her cabinet--maybe some of them, but she would already have the connections to people with experience. It's hard for Obama to find someone qualified without picking a former Clinton employee. If she had won, though, I doubt she'd shy away from Bill Richardson or Susan Rice, if they wanted to work with her.

Not saying Obama isn't breaking a few molds with what he's doing, just that it shouldn't be spun as criticism of Clinton, as Ackerman's title did. That's my real complaint about Ackerman--he goes straight for the emotional punch rather than analyzing from a consistent and thorough understanding. He's too much like the people I don't like on the other side. I guess he does that because he's knew and has to make a name for himself. But he's an Ann Coulter wannabee, only on our side. Hopefully he'll mature beyond that.

And no, now that you mention it, being fired from TNR is not necessarily a bad thing. It was just the way he did it--writing negative articles about them in other publications, while screaming about skullfucking corpses at TNR editorial board meetings.

[grantcart]

2. Of course not she is out to undermine him for her personal agenda

And Obama is completely clueless and hasn't had any discussions with her about management style or policy objectives.



The whole crowd is just a bunch of amatuers.



Makes you wonder how he managed to put together a team that ran his campaign with absolutely no conflict or drama.



Is the emoticon/smilie really necessary?

[ProSense]

3. Where does it say that? There is a big difference

between Hillary intentionally setting out to undermine Obama and her staffing the department with people loyal to her.

Hillary has already proven that she has little control over people close to her.

[grantcart]

4. Do you really think that President Elect Obama and Senator Clinton

would agree to her appointment with out identifying who the likely key Deputy Secretarys of State would be?


Prior to offering or accepting the position they are not only going to talk about policy, objectives, management style and key appointments at State, they are also going to have discussions about the key positions at NSC, DOD and the President's NSA.

The SOS is not only the head of the Department of State but also on the Foriegn Policy team that includes all of the other key players. Any politician with the experience and intelligence of President Elect Obama and Senator Clinton are going to talk in detail about all of these things before a match is made.

My guess is that the delay in announcing her appointment has to do with the vetting of key appointments for the Deputy positions so that all of the i's have been dotted and the t's crossed.

I think it is insrtuctive to see how effective Candidate Obama was in running his large campaign staff, which he did with a hands on approach, to see that he would not appoint a senior cabinet official without he and they being comfortable with both policy and personnel selection.

Contrary to your statement that "Hillary has already proven that she has little control over people close to her", it has been universally acclaimed, even by her ideological opponents, that she ran one of the most effective Senate offices and was very effective on both constituent concerns and policy absorption.

Her campaign was not as well controlled as Obama's, and neither has any other candidate in the history of the country. In comparison to everyone but Obama she had a very effective team and even when she was down and out continued to inspire very strong loyalty among her staff, even if there was some internal conflict, a phenomena shared with every losing campaign.

[ProSense]

5. Have they agreed?

In comparison to everyone but Obama she had a very effective team and even when she was down and out continued to inspire very strong loyalty among her staff, even if there was some internal conflict, a phenomena shared with every losing campaign.

Nonsense. The infigthing and lack of a coherent strategy is what derailed her campaign. I remind you Kerry won the primary.

She didn't even come close to Kerry's monthly fundraising record and ended up a record $31 million in debt.

[geek tragedy]

6. Hillary at State is not CHANGE--it is more of the SAME.

If she and her Neo-Con lite advisors like O'Hanlon set up shop there, you can forget about the US ever being anything but an imperialist power.

[AtomicKitten]

7. yep

Hillary Rodham Clinton

For all the buzz and speculation about the possibility that Sen. Clinton may be named Secretary of State, most media coverage has focused on her rivalry with Obama during the primary, along with the prospect of her husband having to face the intense personal, financial and political vetting process required to secure a job in the new administration. But the question of how Clinton would lead the operations at Foggy Bottom calls for scrutiny of her positions vis-a-vis Obama's stated foreign-policy goals.

Clinton was an ardent defender of her husband's economic and military war against Iraq throughout the 1990s, including the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which ultimately laid the path for President George W. Bush's invasion. Later, as a U.S. senator, she not only voted to authorize the war, but aided the Bush administration's propaganda campaign in the lead-up to the invasion. "Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile-delivery capability and his nuclear program," Clinton said when rising to support the measure in October 2002. "He has also given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaida members … I want to insure that Saddam Hussein makes no mistake about our national unity and for our support for the president's efforts to wage America's war against terrorists and weapons of mass destruction."

"The man who vowed to deliver us from 28 years of Bushes and Clintons has been stocking up on Clintonites," New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd recently wrote. "How, one may ask, can he put Hillary -- who voted to authorize the Iraq war without even reading the intelligence assessment -- in charge of patching up a foreign policy and a world riven by that war?"

Beyond Iraq, Clinton shocked many and sparked official protests by Tehran at the United Nations when asked during the presidential campaign what she would do as president if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," she declared. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

Clinton has not shied away from supporting offensive foreign policy tactics in the past. Recalling her husband's weighing the decision of whether to attack Yugoslavia, she said in 1999, "I urged him to bomb. … You cannot let this go on at the end of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time. What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?"

http://www.alternet.org/audits/107666/this_is_change_20_hawks,_clintonites_and_neocons_to_watch_for_in_obama%27s_white_house/?page=entire

[politicasista]

8. I hope Susan Rice will be considered for something

She would have made a nice SOS or NSA.