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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Nov. 17, 2008 / 19 Mar-Cheshvan 5769

Hillary for Secretary of State — Is he kidding?

By Dick Morris & Eileen Mc Gann


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Hopefully, it's just a rumor started by the Clintonistas, but is Barack Obama seriously considering appointing Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State? If he pulls the trigger on that appointment, he will deserve what he gets!


Obama would do well to remember the history of Harry Truman and Jimmy Byrnes in 1944. Byrnes, known as the "assistant president" in FDR's third term, was widely thought to be Roosevelt's choice to replace Henry Wallace as his running mate on the 1944 ticket. At the last minute, FDR re-considered and decided Byrnes, a South Carolinian, was too conservative and went with Truman instead. But the Democratic Party establishment clearly was disappointed. While they wanted to get rid of the almost-Communist Wallace, they wanted Byrnes not Truman. (Just like the party establishment really wanted Hillary, not Obama, to be the presidential nominee).


So Truman named Byrnes to be his Secretary of State after he took office on Roosevelt's death in 1945. Byrnes, who thought he should have been president, proceeded to make his own foreign policy. He flew to a meeting in Europe with the allied foreign ministers and barely kept President Truman posted on the deliberations. He became a loose cannon who thought he was the president. After a year of this nonsense, Truman fired him and brought in George Marshall to take the job.


If Obama nominates Hillary, he will put himself in the same position as Truman was with Byrnes and the results will be just as predictable.


All of this illustrates the fundamental problem Obama faces within his party: He was not their top choice for the job. The Democratic Party's top brass wanted Hillary, not Obama. When Obama began winning primaries and caucuses, they fell in line and refused to make a super-delegate goal line stand for Clinton, but that does not disguise the fact that most of them backed Clinton from the outset.


Oddly, their lack of loyalty to Obama puts him in much the same position as Bill Clinton was in when he became president in 1993. He was not his party's first choice either. New York Governor Mario Cuomo could have had the 1992 nomination for the asking, but he opted out. Faced with a choice among Clinton, cancer-stricken Paul Tsongas, and renegade former California Governor Jerry Brown, they opted for Bill. But their hearts stayed with Cuomo.


So when Clinton faced a Democratic Congress on taking office, he could not count on their support. Neither can Obama. So Clinton had to toe the liberal line in order to round up the votes he needed to pass his programs in the Congress that was nominally under his control. So will Obama. Ultimately, Clinton became the hostage of the Democratic majority in Congress and they became his jailer. He was forced so far to the left that he told me, in 1994 (after losing the Congressional elections) "I was so far to the left I didn't recognize myself." Neither will Obama.


Those who embrace the comforting fantasy that Obama will govern from the center and leave the left frustrated are in for a shock. We don't know if Obama wants to move left or center. But that's not the key question. The issue is not what he will want to do but what Congress will make him do.


The best example of how this will work is the 1994 anti-crime bill that was one of Clinton's top legislative priorities. He originally saw it as a conservative bill providing for 100,000 extra police (about a 205 expansion of the nation's constabulary), handgun and assault rifle controls, expansion of state and local prison construction, and a federal death penalty. But the liberals in the House, particularly the Black Caucus, were inflamed at the idea of capital punishment and demanded a stiff price for their support. Why didn't Clinton just cross the aisle and pass the bill with Republican backing?


First, the GOP wanted the gun controls dropped from the bill and second, the Democratic Congressional leadership threatened to make the president an orphan and pull their support if he sought Republican votes. So Clinton was stuck wringing every last vote out of his House majority.


The bill became a Christmas tree with every kind of local pork project decorating. Midnight basketball courts, swimming pools, community centers and all manner of garbage was tacked onto the bill to win the votes, member by member, of every House Democrat. As a result, it became a left-leaning bill that Clinton had to accept. (After passage, it became the central force driving a sharp reduction in crime, but that's another story).


Obama will face just such a situation and will be forced to the left - if he needs any forcing - just as Clinton was. And selecting Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State will just cede more of his authority.

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JWR contributor Dick Morris is author, most recently, of "Fleeced: How Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want to Kill Talk Radio, the Do-Nothing Congress, Companies ... Are Scamming Us ... and What to Do About It". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) Comment by clicking here.



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