The Departure of Hillary
CBS News reports the latest scuttlebutt. Hillary’s out.
(CBS News) President Barack Obama is putting together his cabinet for a second term, including a new CIA director. So far, only Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has confirmed she will leave. And Republicans are already objecting to her potential replacement.
CBS News has learned that President Obama is likely to nominate Susan Rice, the current U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to replace Clinton as Secretary of State.
White House sources say the president feels he should be able to choose the cabinet members he wants, and they say that Rice has performed well on Iran and North Korea. But Rice was the public face of the administration’s response to the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, saying that they were prompted by a spontaneous protest — not terrorism — and she has come under fire from Republicans.
But as Obama makes clear, Rice was not stating her personal assessment. She was regurgitating “the intelligence that had been provided to her”. The clear implication is Petraeus messed up, but Rice was simply doing her job “with grace”.
Obama accepts responsibility for Rice, but Petraeus is on his own. As for Hillary Clinton, she can reflect on the adage “that she who rides the tiger can never dismount”. You get thrown off.
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The most damning rumor is the one of John Kerry, the Swift Boat commander turned war protester, being nominated for Defense.
I predicted/ guessed that Susan Rice would be his pick — simply because she’s his toady — and as far Left as one might imagine.
Her posting to the UN was merely a tune-up for her big show.
This, folks, is but a forewarning.
The Wan is for turning — Left — now to the utmost.
The White House is going from pink to Red.
And his purge will cast far and wide.
The last remnants of the old republic will be cast aside.
The emperor will govern with his czars/ gauleiters.
Such is the way: top down autocracy!
Of the whole White House gang, she was the only one about whom it may be said, that she clung to a few ragged shreds of class. For that reason I’m sorry to see her go.
Would that “Operation Chaos” had prevailed…
I think Buraq is not going to give anyone outside his circle any power whatsoever. He is going to keep all key levers of power within his grasp to be used for his own purposes – and to bring real chaos and marxist change.
Richard:
No, according to Obama she did not regurgitate “the intelligence that had been provided to her,”.
Obama said:
“she gave her best understanding of the intelligence that had been provided to her,”
If I was Rice I would watch my 6. If something goes wrong “SHE GAVE HER BEST UNDERSTANDING” of the intelligence and she will be under the bus. Man Obama is good at shifting blame and covering his ass!
Say, if Obama can take credit for the Arab Spring as being inspired by his election then doesn’t he also have to take credit for the wave of strikes that are paralyzing Europe immediately following his re-election?
White House sources say the president feels he should be able to choose the cabinet members he wants,
Subject to Senate confirmation. As a former professor of the Constitution I would think he would know that. Of course this is just the latest in a long line of Constitutional misunderstandings on his part.
Must not have been a very good prof.
OT:
Here’s the first in-depth analysis I’ve seen of the white vote. It looks like where Romney lost was among northern white working class people. (He did not get the Reagan democrats.)
http://www.tnr.com/blog/electionate/110039/the-gop-has-problems-white-voters-too
My recollection is that Susan Rice and Samantha Power were the most outspoken proponents of R2P — the “right to protect” in Libya. For those who have forgotten, R2P was used as an excuse for US military intervention against Qaddhafi, NOT to protect our ambassador and other Americans assigned to Libya.
#7 Walt,
“Of course this is just the latest in a long line of Constitutional misunderstandings on his part.”
Oh, I think he understands the senate confirmation process just fine, as do many of the Democrats. The problem is, they don’t care when it comes to what they want to do. When the Constitution can be useful to stop Republicans or anyone else opposed to them, they will recite it chapter and verse and declare it a vital document. When it stands in the way of what they think should be done, it’s a “100 year old” scrap of paper without much relevance to today’s world.
Politicians in general, but Democrats in particular, do not think the rules apply to them, and Obama, after having skated to two Presidential wins despite a, let’s be charitable, highly questionable record, knows he has carte blanche with huge swaths of the media and the general populace. He plans to use it, to the very limits.
What limits? Oh, we are definitely going to find out.
WG
Coketown said…
Did anyone else see a pair of black lace panties fly past the president after that female reporter said, “I’ve never seen you lose”?
11/14/12 1:26 PM
OT:
Victor Davis Hanson says the pubbies are getting it all wrong on the latino vote.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/333244/latino-vote-obsession-victor-davis-hanson
He’ll just decree that Rice is his Sec. of State and expect everyone to start treating her like one. If Congress doesn’t like it, they can impeach and remove him from office. Like that’s going to happen! At some point both Dems. and Reps. in Congress are going to realize they’re being converted into potted plants, and either assert themselves or sit around rustling their leaves hoping to get watered…
#3 Matt: “…she clung to a few ragged shreds of class…”
Are you blind? As a bat? From White Water, to Tailhook, to Waco, to Gorelic, to Benghazi and every foreign policy mess in the last 3 years…I can’t–
Why was she even a senator? Would Laura Bush have run for the senate? No.
Why is she not testifying? Condi Rice did so and was met with outrageous “bloody hands”. She’s had complete control of the fiasco that is America’s role abroad-she saw, she came, Americans died.
not sure why, buy i really dont care about this.
stock up on food and stuff you need.
Walt C #7:
He was never a professor but just a guest lecturer. He gave lectures on such things as “Racism and The Consitution.” In other words, typical puffy leftist propaganda stuff.
When he first started at the school he was rated very high by the students. But he was soon rated as among the very worst.
With Obama re-elected, he can now turn to fulfilling his sainted mother’s oft spoken wish, whispered in baby Barry’s tender ear, that the United States in its present form be destroyed and transformed into something wonderful, a land of compassion and fairness, where all may live in peace and harmony, unfettered by partisan strife. The appointment of the fiercely Red Susan Rice is the first step in that transformation, and we shall soon see three hard left Justices of the Supreme Court, and the picture of Mao again proudly displayed on the White House Christmas tree.
There’s brown rice and white rice
And now we have Red Rice
To man the worn tiller at State
Her main predilection
Will be the direction
And left is her outstanding trait
Expect that Obama
Will listen to mama
And work for the country’s demise
With Rice now in charge
The ship sails by and large
With fair winds for the Lefty prize
The White House now Red
In time ‘twill be said
That freedom is now in the past
His hand on the knife
The President for Life
Just laughs and says things never last
Can we deem Hillary’s departure retroactive to 2009? How about 1994?
You can’t make this stuff up. Or can you? Can we play a Fantasy Cabinet From Hell game? Can we outdo reality? What happens when reality outdoes fiction?
When shuffles like this come around, isn’t it astonishing how weak the Democrat bench is?
The Democrats have been the winning side for decades. They should by all rights have been attracting the best & brightest among aspiring pols. Yet the top of the Democrat Party is a sad plateau of mediocrity, even forgetting Soetero. His Cabinet Secretaries are super-annuated retreads; his Czars are faceless functionaries. Even in Congress, the ‘new blood’ elected to safe Democrat seats are mostly colorless hacks.
It is almost as if the men behind the curtain are making sure that no Democrat with competence & charisma will be allowed into the nomenklatura.
That is the nature of nomenklatura. As the Soviet Union neared its end most of its leaders were in their 70s. Mugabe, Castro, the Kims — all of them hang on until nature, or God if you prefer, the only force that will not bow to them, takes them off the board.
What’s interesting is the President’s change in tone. There’s menace in it now. And the press, or perhaps it is only my imagination, are actually cringing in fear; steeling themselves to ask questions. Well it is a bed they have prepared for themselves.
Things are different now. Elections no longer signify a seasonal changeover in party leadership. They now signify a change of state. The Republicans do not have the luxury of waiting till 2014 or 2016. They are fighting for their lives now. Right now.
How many realize this? A growing number is my guess. But it may be too little and too late.
What is America’s “Center of Gravity”?
You can lead an electorate to water, but you can’t make it drink.
I’m afraid we have in large part lost the western canon, much as the Ents lost the Entwives. It just wandered off one day. The yutes of today (yute being anyone under 50) don’t have it, and they don’t know that they don’t have it, and they keep dumping the fragments of it that they trip across, it’s very “Lord of the Flies”.
Well, well. As the doctor told Hunter S. Thompson in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”: “I usually have great faith in the natural processes, but in your case, we’ll just have to let things run their course and then work with what’s left.”
Dianne Feinstein has apparently won control of the hearings process. Petraeus will testify behind closed doors, and the questions will be limited to Benghazi.
The administration now believes it can contain the Benghazi scandal or at least draw its sting until the whole thing blows over. From the looks of it the GOP is going to go along. They will content themselves with scoring a few points thinking perhaps that this has gained them something and then they will sit back, basking in their imagined victory.
This is where a “national council” might have proved useful. The FBI agent who was in charge of the Broadwell investigation was barred from it after he complained it was being repurposed to cover up for the President. He went to Cantor, and Cantor went to the Bureau. Although the agent was not fired, the support provided by the GOP is not what one might call reassuring.
These guys are like what they used to call the abogado de amin back in the Filipino underworld, public defenders whose first instinct was to sell their client out. They’d shaft you as soon as look at you. The apples are falling out of the Obama tree. But nobody is setting out the bushel baskets to gather them up.
A little competition is in order. If some prominent politicians would take these whistleblowers under their wing, then even more might be forthcoming. Otherwise the hearings will bury the news, not air it
Wretchard,
Vast amounts of evidence is emerging that the 2012 election was stolen. Moreover, we have a voting infrastructure that allows future elections to be stolen at will.
That’s the death of what was once a republic.
Until we can go back to paper ballots, purple fingers, and picture IDs, we no longer have a republic, and it no longer matters whether we conservatives can educate or persuade our fellow citizens.
I don’t agonize over the demise of the Dodo Bird and there’s no way I could get fussed up by the Republican Party going extinct.
It’s time for a new American conservative political species that occupies a different habitat, adapts to the 21st century political ecosystems and behaves very differently from the Republican Party. Trying to preserve the Republican Party is like trying to protect the Sasquatch – effort wasted on an imaginary animal that even those who pretend to believe in it admit is an evolutionary failure. I think it’s time to bury the Republicans and move on to starting a conservative party and movement deep in the gut of America that is based on ordinay people, like those in the Tea Party.
As a commenter, derek, said in a previous thread:
“There is no conspiracy. Both parties suck, and power corrupts absolutely. “
I agree with that and I can’t see what the deeply corrupt Republican Party has to do with anything that is useful. Leave the Republicans in the dumpster of the past. Don’t pine for some imaginary Great Leader who will never appear. Start to change things at the local level and after 20 years or so there will be a strong conservative movement that produces a truck load of leaders.
Yes, I think it will take 20 years to replace the current basket case that is conservatism in the U.S. with something that conservatives can believe in. It will be absolutely worthwhile.
Oh, and voting machines or any form of electronic voting are stupid ideas because they are the shrangri la of errors and voting fraud.
Want to know how to destroy Obama’s credibiity? Just take a page out of the Lee Atwater playbook and offer as your only comment a line from a relevant song. Imagine the impact if John Boehner’s only sound bite upon her departure was
“The Thrill is Gone” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fk2prKnYnI&feature=related
Or say Obama wants to spend $1.6 trillion we don’t have?
“Paying the Cost to be the Boss” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HC94GVNftw
What does an Indonesian boy know about the blues?
“What’s interesting is the President’s change in tone. There’s menace in it now.”
If half of a country’s population and most of its armed forces don’t trust an increasingly dictatorial leader and regime any further than it can throw them, and the civilian population is heavily armed to boot, my moneys says things probably aren’t going to end well for said leader and regime.
I highly recommend, as a tonic and a primer, if you will, the beautifully written, inspiring Washington’s Crossing, by David Hackett Fischer (his Pulitzer prize in history was richly deserved; and he’s no Leftist git).
It’s just what we all need to read this winter: how George Washington and the American patriots overcame desperate odds in the Revolution.
“Six months after the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution was all but lost. A powerful British force had routed the Americans at New York, occupied three colonies, and advanced within sight of Philadelphia. Ninety percent of the American army had deserted.
“Yet, as David Hackett Fischer recounts in this riveting history, George Washington–and many other Americans–refused to let the Revolution die.
“On Christmas night, as a howling nor’easter struck the Delaware Valley, he led his men across the Delaware River and attacked the exhausted Hessian garrison at Trenton, killing or capturing nearly a thousand men.
“A second battle of Trenton followed within days. The Americans held off a counterattack by Lord Cornwallis’s best troops, then were almost trapped by the British force. Under cover of night, Washington’s men stole behind the enemy and struck them again, defeating a brigade at Princeton.
“The British were badly shaken. In twelve weeks of winter fighting, their army suffered severe damage, their hold on New Jersey was broken, and their strategy was ruined.
“Fischer’s richly textured narrative reveals the crucial role of contingency in these events. We see how the campaign unfolded in a sequence of difficult choices by many actors, from generals to civilians, on both sides.
“While British and German forces remained rigid and hierarchical, Americans evolved an open and flexible system that was fundamental to their success. The startling success of Washington and his compatriots not only saved the faltering American Revolution, but helped to give it new meaning.”
Fischer tells the remarkable story of how George Washington forged an unprecedented thing: an army of free men. How he struggled with the perplexities and difficulties of inspiring men of free will to fight with one purpose, and how he achieved this: and how that achievement gave shape to our newborn nation.
Do read it: Fischer (b. 1935, a Marylander and patriot himself) is a wonderful storyteller and masterful prosodist as well as a superb historian. You Belmonters would love it; and I think you cannot help but find it inspirational. You can peek inside the book at the Amazon website. http://www.amazon.com/David-Hackett-Fischer/e/B000AQ4LL8
[Also marvelous: Fischer's Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America.]
beverly @ 29 – Another great book (and one featuring the letters of a second cousin of mine, many generations removed, Lt. Joseph Hodgkins) is This Glorious Cause http://preview.tinyurl.com/c5tu9uq
There is some comfort in re-visiting the history of other authoritarian regimes, if you take a really long view. Ruthlessness, intimidation, arbitrary use of violence, The Honey Pot Frame-up, betrayal – all these tools we’re seeing used more openly every day – can be effective for a good long time.
But they don’t particularly encourage loyalty within the ranks. In time they breed rebellion WITHIN the inner circles of power, as surely as sunlight on stagnant sewage breeds Marxists.
This country is in for a very rough ride, and it’s likely to get bloody whether the “conservatives” resist or not.
Take just a little look at history, people.
Every time the Marxist/Communist/Left has gained power in a nation, certain events have been UNIVERSAL.
Strikes by workers are declared crimes against the state. Unions might be allowed to continue, but only as thralls to the state. Essentially all unions are allowed to do is sing Dear Leader’s praise and continue confiscating dues from their members. It’s actually much more efficient, because those revenues now go directly to the coffers of the Party… or the pockets of the Nomenklatura… without all that tedious filtering through intermediates and money launderers.
The only difference among regimes is in the degree of brutality and violence employed by the government against the union leaders, shop stewards, and rank and file members, until they learn their place.
Businesses are subject to micromanagement, un-funded mandates, intrusive inspections and audits, and endless taxes.
Simply, obsession with control is the distinguishing characteristic of the Statist. You can see it in the battalions of petty-tyrant bureaucrats who’ve burrowed into the carcass of EVERY federal agency like ticks on a stray dog.
There is a simple term for a government whose leadership operates by issuing decrees from time to time, then violating or ignoring its own decrees depending upon what was served for breakfast or whether there was too much starch in the royal briefs.
There is another very simple term for a government which gives its police the power to stop without cause, demand identification documents, conduct intrusive searches, and arrest, fine, and imprison people for no other reason than questioning the reason for the stop or search.
Finally, there is a simple term for the person living under the domination of such governments.
Dictatorship.
Police State.
Slave.
God, please give us the vision to see what is right and the will to do it.
Charles@8
The state chart in the New Republic article compares Bush/Kerry (04) vs Obama/Romney (12). That’s apples to oranges in my opinion. And the author uses that in an attempt peddle his BS.
“Romney’s strong national showing among white voters was almost exclusively driven by historic support from Southern and Appalachian white voters.”
If you compare Obama/McCain vs Obama/Romney, Romney did better than McCain in all the listed states.
There has to be a Democrat or two or three out there who can’t abide with both what his party is doing to his/her country and the tenuous position it puts us all in.
It wouldn’t be the first time that Republicans were rescued by converted Democrats. And the need is no greater than it is today.
Arthur Davis, hopefully is the first of several people of good will and conscience to make this journey.
Teh Republicans don’t seem to be able to do this on their own and those votes they need are stuck in the wrong places………
And the press, or perhaps it is only my imagination, are actually cringing in fear…
Might it be (that is, if it’s not only your imagination) because they’ve done their job and they’ve performed it with distiction.
But Obama doesn’t really need them anymore. Not really.
(Question: But who does Obama really need?)
Oh, the media might be useful now and then, it’s true, but all those syconphantic fools could always decide to remember what journalism is supposed to be all about (doubtful, but possible); in short, they can’t now be entirely trusted.
(Question: Who can, and will, be trusted entirely?)
For all of us in despair there is this interesting slap in the face from a Frenchman http://www.thedissidentfrogman.com/blog/link/the-frogmans-prophecies/ that I found the link for on Neo-neocon.
Beverly @ 29 – Sounds like a wonderful book. Thanks also for the timely reminder that when the going gets tough, the tough get tougher, ingenious and more determined. Not less so.
@#24 Wretchard suggests that the FBI agent in charge of the Broadwell investigation might me a whistle blower. Is it possible to spoof a shirtless picture to impugn someone?
Could extra emails be planted on any of the participants to change evidence?
33. nrg
There has to be a Democrat or two or three out there who can’t abide with both what his party is doing to his/her country and the tenuous position it puts us all in.
Diane Feinstein and Joe Manchin come to mind.
Mad Fiddler #31:
I have thought for some time that the most apt comparison with the Obama Regime is Allende’s Regime in Chile.
That did not end well.
The instigation for change came from housewives taking to the streets, banging their empty pots.
I think we will need to take a page from Alinsky and turn their techniques on the Obamamniacs.
I suggest cars swarms in D.C. Instead of Park N Ride, I suggest Ride N Park.
Wretchard@21: “They are fighting for their lives now. Right now. How many realize this? A growing number is my guess. But it may be too little and too late.”
The GOP is toast. They are done. Stick a fork in it. They are as good as Whigs or Mensheviks now. Why is everybody still obsessing about them?
26. stevesmith
“Yes, I think it will take 20 years to replace the current basket case that is conservatism in the U.S. with something that conservatives can believe in. It will be absolutely worthwhile.”
So, what will be left after 20 years of Leftist ascendency, there being no effective mode of resistance with the Republican Party gone?
Why are you not advocating an insurgency within the Party? Let’s go Linbeck on it.
tRex @41:
Why are you not advocating an insurgency within the Party? Let’s go Linbeck on it.
Because, dear tRex, the brand is tarnished. The brand is baggage. Follow the corporate model and fold the shell and pop it back up under a new name with different leadership. Stop putting forth great compromisers and put forth men and women of character and principle. That will never happen in this Republican Party. That’s why I left it. Yup I voted for Romney, or should I say for notObama. But really, was MittRomneycare the best we could have hoped for? The best our country could have??
“The brand is baggage.”
It occurred to me lately that these people are yellow belly cowards. They are not part of the greatest generation. They are the lowest, servants of their own greed. They have not acted in any patriotic manner in recent history. Men have died fighting for less important things. This lot? They are scum. I switched to independent somewhere between amnesty, Homeland Security fraud, and Bush’s Medicare presciption giveaway.
The Republicans do not stand for anything. The Tea Party ought to stand on its own and forget the obstructionist party.
41. tRex
An insurgency inside the corpse of the Republican Party will still take 20 years to complete, so why not get away from the smell and start fresh? The 20 year completion time to rebuild conservatism does not in any way prevent effective opposition in the short term. My imagined timeline goes something like:
The first elected representatives of a new party should start appearing after 4 years; the election of more representatives in congress than the Republican Party should take about 8 years. That will create a truly divided right whereupon the upstart conservative party will unite the right and take over from the Republicans who are by then just a memory.
Then it will take about ten more years before the new conservative party sees the end of the first term of its first POTUS and his/her relection to a second term.
At least that’s how it plays out in my imaginings.
“19. Blast From the Past
You can’t make this stuff up. Or can you? Can we play a Fantasy Cabinet From Hell game? Can we outdo reality? What happens when reality outdoes fiction?”
Indeed.
I’ve been saying for a while now that The Onion has become obsolete. Life has turned into The Onion.
Too bad, because the Cabinet From Hell game could be fun. But as you say, it’s tough to think of anyone worse for State than S. Rice. Maybe Samantha Power, out-and-proud Jew-hater. For Defense, I think Kerry really does take the cake.
Great book review, beverly. You inspired me to purchase the book. Looking forward to it!
I loved Albion’s Seed. Hackett-Fischer is a terrific writer.