It’s Clinton-Bush!
Wake up and smell the foreign policy! Big day for the incoming Clinton-Bush administration as POTUS-elect Obama Rodham Bush 3 announces the national security team he campaigned against. Roundup, UPDATED:
Obama in Chicago: Change is behind the change. Bush’s deal with Iraq, post-surge, has ushered in ”a transition period in which our mission is changing.” He still thinks 16 months and out ”is the right time frame,” but AP neglects to mention whether he thanked George Bush for making that possible. I’m guessing no.
Obama says he grabbed a bunch of Bushitlerites and the scary Monster, because, much like Bush, “I am a strong believer in strong personalities and strong opinions.”
“I think that’s how the best decisions are made. One of the dangers in a White House, based on my reading of history, is that you get wrapped up in group-think and everybody agrees with everything and there’s no discussion and there are no dissenting views. So I am going to be welcoming a vigorous debate inside the White House.”
What is that, some kind of dig on the Cabinet he just raided? What’s he trying to say, Colin Powell, George Tenet didn’t have strong opinions and voice dissent, or that they are weenies? Hey, whatever happened to Donald Rumsfeld, anyway? Never mind, someone in the Obama admin is going to need to have strong opinions, anyway, seeing as the boss doesn’t.
“But understand, I will be setting policy as president. I will be responsible for the vision that this team carries out, and I will expect them to implement that vision once decisions are made.”
Vision thing, compliments of George Bush, with a Clinton assist. Hey Obama, good moves so far. But here’s a clue. While you’re working on that vision thing, make sure your mind isn’t so open your brains fall out!
Here’s a fun AP sentiment:
Gates’ presence in Chicago made him a visible symbol of the transition in power from the old administration to the new.
I dunno. I’d say it made him a visible symbol of Obama’s acknowledgement that Bush was right, Obama was wrong, and it’s now Obama’s job to try not to screw it up.
NYT, hopefully: Change is coming. Hawks have embraced a shift in priorities. Bushian warmongers, Monster join Kumbayah chorus, commit to pie in the sky, determined to find out why they hate us. Unclear whether budgetary demands of killing jihadis, chicken-in-every-pottism will intervene; insists the Bushites weren’t so Bushy, except when Bush was Obamist; and mulls … will the Monster’s desire to serve her master’s will be constrained by reality? At least I think that’s what this Obamian gotchafest is trying to say.
Barnes at Weekly Standard: Is Obama a secret centrist?
His national security choices also underscore this point. Hillary Clinton benefits from not being John Kerry, who desperately wants to be secretary of state. And Obama owes Kerry for having lifted him from obscurity and made him keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic convention. But knowing Kerry, Obama looked elsewhere and fastened on Clinton as his secretary of state.
Clinton, for all her shortcomings, doesn’t hail from the surrender-at-all-costs wing of the Democratic party. Nor does retired Marine general Jim Jones, who’s slated to be Obama’s national security adviser. Jones, an Iraq war skeptic, is a strong supporter of offshore drilling and other steps to increase domestic production of oil and gas.
Then there’s Bob Gates, Bush’s defense secretary. Obama wants to keep him at the Pentagon for another year. Liberals and the media like Gates because he replaced the man they loved to hate, Donald Rumsfeld. But Gates is no dove and no ally of the antiwar left.
So the scoreboard looks like this: Three of the four cabinet posts that matter most are going to those with views acceptable to the center-right of the Democratic party. That’s Geithner, Clinton, and Gates. The fourth, attorney general, will provoke a confirmation fight if Obama chooses his buddy Eric Holder, famous as President Clinton’s deputy attorney general for facilitating the pardon of Marc Rich.
…
The losers in the Obama administration, as of now, are Joe Biden and Susan Rice, favorites of the left. Biden’s role in foreign policy is likely to be minimal with Clinton at the State Department. She’ll squash him if he sticks his head up. Rice, an assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration and an Obama campaign adviser, may wind up as United Nations ambassador, a highly visible but inconsequential post. She’ll have little influence.
Barnes delightfully describes the phenomenon but fails to answer his own question, beyond noting:
The Washington cliché about appointments is that personnel is policy. It’s an exaggeration but essentially true. If Obama wants to pursue economic and national security policies that would thrill MoveOn.org, William Ayers, and the Democratic left, he has a funny way of showing it. The only reasonable conclusion is he’s spurning the left.
So, secret centrist, lacking convictions, or just gutless and scared straight? Only a foreign policy crisis and/or a fight with Congress will tell.
Pointy-headed Fulbright/Oxford/NYU law scholar lectures at CS Monitor on the pathology of change, and attempts to describe where Obama fits in. Explains, but fails to observe, that Obama doesn’t appear to actually stand for anything except warmed-over feel-good leftism but mainly his own self-repudiated anti-Bushism.
Marian College prof at RealClearWorld sums up the status of Isreali-Palestinian issues, says the Middle East waits for Obama and posits the Clinton team is up to it. Fails to note that American presidents generally don’t waste a lot of effort on that until under the legacy gun. Given the left’s insistence in recent years that placating the Pals and eliminating Arab hatred of Israel as a reason why they hate us is key to broader Mideast peace, it will be interesting to see if the Clinton-Bush admin makes that a centerpiece of its war strategy. My guess: No.
Just ask the Arabs. LA Times: Arabs readjust their irrational Obamist exuberance to a cold Clinton reality. Expect realism:
“Hillary Clinton has watched Condi Rice make 23 visits to the region over the past two years and achieve nothing,” said Oren, the Israeli historian. “She is going to think many times before investing personally in a process where a very good chance of success is not guaranteed.”
Jennifer Rubin at Pajamas: Mazeltov, Hillary!
So much for Palestine in the Sky. More immediately, USA Today on Obama’s bad case of Mumbai:
The challenge Obama and his team will inherit is to seek justice for the murders and ensure that the terrorists do not achieve their aims. Those goals, while murky, might involve stirring civil conflict within India (much as al-Qaeda in Iraq stoked sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites there) or, more broadly, focusing attention on divided Kashmir, long a flashpoint between nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan.
…
The test for the Bush administration and, in seven weeks, the Obama administration, is to support the investigation and to prevent events from spinning out of control.
Before his first debate with John McCain, Obama noted that presidents need to be able to do more than one thing at a time. The Mumbai massacre underscored that he will have to fight the war on terror simultaneously with the battle to save the U.S. economy. For the U.S., India and Pakistan, the best revenge for the atrocities of Mumbai will be to cooperate to counteract the scourge of terrorism and prevent the terrorists from inciting even more violence.
And, though USA Today only briefly touches on the issue, add to the president’s multi-tasking list figuring out how to get Pakistan off its Islamic extremism habit.
RCP Blog: Officially Madam Secretary.
In just a few hours, Hillary Clinton will be announced as Barack Obama’s pick to be the next Secretary of State. There’s been a tremendous amount of speculation as to the wisdom of Obama’s choice, and there’s really no predicting whether this will turn out to be a pitch-perfect partnership or a match made in hell. Whether one takes the former or latter view appears to depend on what one thinks of Hillary Clinton’s motivations, and her ability to keep her ego and her husband’s penchant for drama in check.
Gateway on Obama’s Susan Rice appointment: Osama bin Laden capture bungler to UN. Hey, Bush didn’t capture Osama, either. Another Bushian policy embraced. Gateway also hurtfully points to Fox vid of the Messiah’s assurances to embittered nutroots that He is the Hope and the Change forever, amen.
Malkin: It’s beginning to look a lot like Hillmas! Malkin earlier noted that good husband Bill agreed to cough up the secret donor names so Hill could get the job. Hot Air on Monsters of State, and on a moment of awkwardness, as a reporter begs of Obama: Didn’t you belittle Hill’s foreign policy cred?
In closing, a fun read as Politico charts the Obama-Clinton evolution. A lot of tension, snubs, overcome by big gestures … by Hillary. The recounting of history illustrates that Obama, in tapping Hill, is rejecting everything he campaigned on. But like most examinations of the subject, this one fails to explain why he’s embraced her, except that she is a biggie in the power elite. How come no one wants to look at why Obama has abandoned his most earnestly voiced principles, and whether he actually has any?
OK, one more. Still fresh a week later, Iowahawk, Obama names Clinton to Presidential Post.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:08 am on Monday, December 1, 2008
5 Responses to “It’s Clinton-Bush!”
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December 1st, 2008 at 12:59 pm
So, secret centrist, lacking convictions, or just gutless and scared straight? Only a foreign policy crisis and/or a fight with Congress will tell.
Crises and fights of which Mr. Obama will have plenty soon enough.
Let’s face it. He appointed Hillary because he needs someone with guts to run things for him. As for keeping Bill quiet, I think he appreciates Hill’s eye-gouging talents well enough to keep himself under control. Mostly.
December 1st, 2008 at 7:34 pm
[...] It’s Clinton-Bush! [...]
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:49 am
Anybody remember how long the US withdrawal has been 16 months away?
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:08 pm
About Nov 2006. The withdrawl was to happen in Mar 2008, according to a Sen Obama.
Cheers
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:25 pm
[...] More… It’s a Clinton-Bush foreign policy. [...]