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THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING CLINTONS
By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com
Asked why he was naming some of his rivals to top administration jobs, President
Lyndon B. Johnson said it best: "I'd rather have them inside the tent pissing
out than outside pissing in." President Obama seems to echo Johnson's management
style in his handling of Bill and Hillary Clinton. By bringing them into his
inner circle, he has marginalized them both and sharply reduced their freedom of
action.
It may appear odd to describe a secretary of State as marginalized, but Obama
has surrounded Hillary with his people and carved up her jurisdiction
geographically. Former Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine) is in charge of
Arab-Israeli relations. Dennis Ross has Iran. Former U.N. Ambassador Dick
Holbrooke has Pakistan and Afghanistan. And Hillary has to share her foreign
policy role on the National Security Council (NSC) with Vice President Biden,
U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, CIA chief Leon Panetta, and NSC staffer Samantha
Powers (who once called Hillary a "monster").
With peers who are competitors and subordinates who can deal directly with the
president, Hillary is reduced to announcing foreign aid packages for Pakistan
while Holbrooke does the heavy lifting.
Part of Hillary's problem is the institutional shrinking of the State
Department. During the Bush years, while war raged, the Defense Department
became more relevant to the conduct of foreign policy. And, under Obama, the
financial crisis has propelled the Treasury into the forefront. State, with its
emphasis on traditional diplomacy, has been forced to take a back seat. Even
though Obama appointed Hillary, he clearly has not been willing to make her a
co-president and confines her to the diminished role of her department.
For his part, Bill Clinton has been asked to be a special envoy to Haiti. Yes,
Haiti. Obama's predecessor asked the former president to orchestrate the
response to the Asian tsunami and then to Hurricane Katrina. Obama gives him
Haiti.
Meanwhile, both Clintons are effectively muzzled and cannot criticize Obama even
as he reverses President Clinton's free market proclivities and budget balancing
discipline. Hillary, the supposed friend of Israel, must sit by quietly and
watch Iran get the bomb while trying all the while to stop Israel from
preventing it.
Bill can't even make money. Denied the ability to accept speeches from foreign
governments or their organs and fenced out of continuing his profitable
relationship with the Emir of Dubai, he and his wife must accept the loss of the
$13 million they spent on her campaign and sit by passively, unable to earn the
money to replace it.
Just as Lincoln buried his rivals Seward, Chase and Stanton in the Cabinet and
then on the Supreme Court, and Wilson buried Bryan at the State Department, so
Obama has hidden his predecessor and his rival in plain sight at the upper
reaches of the government.
How long will Hillary subject herself to this discipline? Likely as long as
Obama is popular. Should his ratings fade, she might move away from the
president and could even consider a primary contest against him in 2012. But
while he is on top of his game, she'll stay loyal.
But she is shrinking by the day. Once Obama's equal -- and before that his
superior -- she now looks tiny compared to the president. She doesn't look like
a president in waiting; she's more like a senior staff member hoping to rise in
the bureaucracy. No longer at the head of a movement or the symbol of rising
women all over the world, she has faded into the State Department woodwork. She
is much less visible than her predecessors Henry Kissinger, George Schultz,
James Baker, Madeleine Albright or Condi Rice. She is even less in the public
eye than was Al Haig during his one-year tenure. One has to go back to the likes
of Warren Christopher or William Rogers to find a secretary of State as far down
the totem poll. This diminished status has got to grate on her and on him. But
they are trapped in Obama's web and cannot easily escape.
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