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How much will Hillary cost Obama?

Texan

Well-known member
Hillary of State

How much will this cost the Obama administration?

By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL


One rule of employee relations? Never hire someone you can't afford to fire. Barack Obama's offer to let Hillary Clinton be secretary of state has already been marked down as a brilliant co-option of his former rival. But nothing comes for free, and the question is just how big a price Mr. Obama will pay in the end.

For now, he is getting only praise for his surprise pick. The move fits neatly into the media narrative that Mr. Obama is drafting a team that will challenge his thinking. It's also being described as a gesture that could heal party wounds and mollify Clinton supporters Mr. Obama never won to his side.

The actual motivation? Short term, Mr. Obama understands his real struggles are going to be in the Senate, where he will need 60 votes. Left there with nothing but a potential future run against Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton would be tempted to use her position to highlight her differences with the sitting president. Even as a junior senator, she could gum up his works. Mr. Obama does not need that.

The job at State all but eliminates this threat. As the nation's top diplomat, Mrs. Clinton will be barred, both by law and by custom, from partisan politics. She'll have to dismantle her extensive political operation, and end the patronage that has earned her continued loyalty.

There's arguably also not enough time for Mrs. Clinton to make her mark as secretary of state, and find a reason to break with her boss, and piece back together her empire, and get into a presidential race. They both know that in taking this cabinet post, Mrs. Clinton is clearing herself from Mr. Obama's political path.

Having lived with, up close, the Clinton political threat, Mr. Obama might be forgiven for agreeing to just about anything to forestall a repeat. But no one should forget that this is Mrs. Clinton we are talking about -- with all her ambitions, all her frustrations, all her family relations and all her past. The price of neutralizing Mrs. Clinton as an outside rival, by bringing her inside, could make today's bailouts look cheap.

The early media pronouncement is that Mr. Obama is getting, for this post of top diplomat, a woman with great "experience." Oh, how short memories are. Mrs. Clinton staked her early primary claim on foreign policy. So determined was she to out-tough Mr. Obama that she walked into wild exaggerations -- Bosnian sniper fire and Northern Ireland peace, to name a few.

Egged on by former Clintonite Gregory Craig (Mr. Obama's newly picked White House general counsel), the media reported on just how little "experience" she'd had as the former first lady. Mrs. Clinton worked hard on foreign policy in the Senate, but it still remains far from clear how talented she'll prove at this job. Mr. Obama is taking a flyer on one of his bigger promises -- that of changing American foreign policy.

His onetime rival will also have plenty of leeway to go rogue. The State Department is traditionally hard to rein in, and Mrs. Clinton has insisted she also be free of traditional constraints. She's demanded the right to staff her department with her own people. And while national security advisers are often more powerful than secretaries of state, she wants the ability to circumvent that position and go directly to Mr. Obama.

This is the stuff ugly internal disputes are made of.

As for the issues, there are plenty on which the rivals disagreed in the primaries, from how tough to be on Iran to how strongly to stand with Israel. And let's not forget any differences between Mr. Obama and Bill Clinton -- since no matter how many promises to the contrary, he will be co-secretary of state.

Speaking of Bill, Mr. Obama famously noted during the primary that it was time to move beyond the Clinton era. Instead, he's dragging that baggage back into the White House living room. The Obama team is combing through the hundreds of thousands of donors to Mr. Clinton's foundation. Those papers surely contain compromising conflicts. There was good reason the Clintons have always refused to make that information public.

Mr. Obama can now sit on those documents, renege on his pledges to be one of the most "transparent" presidencies in history, and endure the rightful outrage that will follow. Or he can release them, and guarantee a feeding frenzy. Either option will prove an unpleasant side story to his more pressing policy concerns. And that's just the immediate issue. There are also the 1990s Clinton documents, which remain under wraps at the Clinton library, but not forever.

Having made the grand gesture, Mr. Obama can now only get rid of Mrs. Clinton at risk of another party rift. The president-elect now owns Mrs. Clinton's past, and future, behavior. That could turn out to be some deal.



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122783202017862989.html#
 

Texan

Well-known member
Instead of "How much will Hillary cost Obama," I guess a better question might be:

How much will this cost Bill? :lol:

=============================================

Bill Clinton agrees to disclose donors: report


WASHINGTON (AFP) — Former US president Bill Clinton has agreed to disclose the names of more than 200,000 donors to his foundation so his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton to become secretary of state, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The move is part of an agreement with President-elect Barack Obama to allow his wife to take up the key foreign policy position.

Citing unnamed Democrats close to both sides said, the newspaper said Clinton had decided to publish the list of donors to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest with Clinton's duties as the nation's top diplomat.

Obama plans to announce Hillary Clinton's nomination on Monday, the paper said.

The disclosure of contributors is among nine conditions that Bill Clinton agreed to during discussions with representatives of Obama, The Times noted.

He also agreed to incorporate his Clinton Global Initiative separately from his foundation so that he has less direct involvement, according to the report.

The initiative, which promotes efforts to fight disease, poverty and climate change, would no longer hold annual meetings outside of the United States or accept new contributions from foreign governments, the paper noted.

Bill Clinton also agreed to submit his future personal speeches and business activities for review by State Department ethics officials or the White House counsel's office.

The deal was negotiated after questions were raised about the former president's web of business and charitable activities.

Some commentators asked how he could continue soliciting contributions for his foundation and collecting six-figure speaking fees for himself from foreign organizations and individuals while his wife conducted US foreign policy, The Times said.



http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hxxFJJ7xombxZsF9B6wvg1FGvhtw
 
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