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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. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Nov. 20, 2008 / 22 Mar-Cheshvan 5769

Deciphering Hillary

By Dick Morris & Eileen Mc Gann


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | What is happening behind the scenes in the pas de deux between Obama and Hillary on her possible appointment as Secretary of State? It's hard to tell, but the smoke signals suggest a pattern.

MOVE ONE: OBAMA MAKES AN OFFER
At their meeting last week, Obama seems to have discussed the possibility of appointing Hillary to State. He may not have overtly offered the job and may have done so out of politeness, but he must have raised the prospect and discussed it with her.

MOVE TWO: CLINTON LEAKS THE "OFFER"
Whether or not Obama really offered her the job, Hillary tried to lock him into the appointment by leaking the "offer." The leak would not have come from Obama and must have come from the New York Senator. It was likely an attempt to force Obama to give her the job by making it public. Now, if he says no, he will have lots of explaining to do to Hillary's famed "18 million voters," those who backed her candidacy in 2008.

MOVE THREE: OBAMA PUTS OUT MIKVA TO THROW COLD WATER ON APPOINTMENT
President-elect Obama, sensing that he was being boxed into making the appointment, and possibly angered by Hillary's brazen tactics, likely suggested to his buddy former President Clinton counsel Abner Mikva that he discuss the drawbacks of the appointment in public. Mikva, a former federal judge who gave up a lifetime appointment to serve as President Clinton's first White House counsel, dislikes the Clintons and spoke privately about needing to take a shower after he resigned one year into the first term. Mikva spoke in public about the conflicts of interest between Bill's foreign activities and his refusal to release his foundation and library donors and Hillary's possible appointment. The message to the Clintons was: this could get embarrassing.

MOVE FOUR: BILL OFFERS TO COME CLEAN, PARTIALLY
Responding indirectly to the Mikva statement, former president Clinton offered to cease some of his foreign activities, vet others, and submit his "major" donors to Obama and ethics office scrutiny. In a hilarious move, Clinton named best friend Bruce Lindsay and former counsel Cheryl Mills to negotiate with his own former chief of staff and now Obama transition head John Podesta on the disclosures and ethics limits.

MOVE FIVE: HILLARY HAS HER AIDES TALK UP THE APPOINTMENT
Continuing her desperate efforts to get the job, Hillary likely had her aides issue statements about how thrilled she was at the prospect of doing all the good she could do as Secretary of State. But they were all still careful to offer an out by saying that she was torn between her love of serving the world and her love of shaping health care reform in the Congress.

MOVE SIX: OBAMA GETS KENNEDY TO GIVE HILLARY AN OUT
Meanwhile, Obama, probably thinking more and more about the downside of appointing Hillary, got Ted Kennedy to offer Hillary the job he had denied her when she asked for it last week - a legislative role in shaping health care reform. Hillary had asked Kennedy to appoint her to head a subcommittee on health care reform, a request the Massachusetts Senator turned down. Now, likely on prompting from Obama, he offered her the chairmanship of a working group on health insurance reform. The offer was probably designed by Obama to offer Hillary a graceful way to decline the State Department rather than admit that it was Bill's financial dealings that made the job impossible.


Where is this all heading? In the world of Hillary and Bill predictions are almost impossible. But Obama and the world would be well served if Hillary did not get the job.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


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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© 2008, Dick Morris

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