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March 12, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth
JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades
March 11, 2010
Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread
JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash
Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing
March 10, 2010
Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In
JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE)
Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded
Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S.
March 9, 2010
Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure
JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES)
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral
March 8, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss?
JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion
March 5, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied
JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause
March 4, 2010
Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses?
JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES)
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative
March 3, 2010
JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES)
The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub
March 2, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there
Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo?
March 1, 2010
JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute
Feb. 26, 2010
Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring
JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost
Feb. 25, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense
JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES)
Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives
Feb. 24, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’
Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack
Feb. 23, 2010
Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No!
JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES)
Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes
Feb. 22, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically?
JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES)
Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk
Feb. 19, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: Is the Divine beyond us or within us?
JWisdom.com Olympic Faith with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Israel and the West are perpetrators of a myth that endangers the Jewish State
Feb. 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Who is Rashad Hussain?
JWisdom.com A Wedding Disaster to Remember with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein ( 3 MINUTES)
Feb. 17, 2010
JWisdom.com Think your life is messed up? with Rabbi David Aaron ( 11 MINUTES)
Greg Logan: 'Greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath' may be postponed because of bar mitzvah
Feb. 16, 2010
Anya Martin : Boy's 'cerebral palsy' fixed with diet
JWisdom.com Feet On The Street Spirituality with Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 8 MINUTES)
Marty Peretz: Let Europe Mind Its Own Business. It Brings Nothing To The Table Save For Mischief
Feb. 15, 2010
Herb Geduld: Lincoln and the Jews
JWisdom.com Are Our Children Really Ours? with Rabbi Mordechai Becher ( 5 MINUTES)
Susan King: 'Wolf Man' reflected writer's wartime Jewish experience

Jewish World Review Dec. 3, 2008 / 6 Kislev 5769

Obama-Hillary coalition

By Dick Morris & Eileen Mc Gann


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | To understand the central dynamic behind Obama's unorthodox selection of Hillary Clinton as his secretary of State, one must look abroad to parliamentary political systems where the most powerful opposition figure routinely becomes prime minister when his party wins a majority, while the second most potent politician is usually named the foreign minister.


That's the model. Obama's selection of Hillary is by no means the act of a president tapping his favorite to hold the top portfolio in his administration. Instead, it is the appointment by the leader of the majority party — trying to hold it together behind his leadership — offering due deference to the woman he narrowly defeated.


Barack Obama realizes that it is Hillary's and Bill's Democratic Party he now leads. He is the new guy in town. So he has paid obeisance to the Clintons' power by naming their loyalists to his Cabinet and their pretender to the presidency to head the State Department.


The problem is that he cannot expect Hillary to offer the proper quotient of gratitude for an appointment that she likely feels she has at least earned and perhaps compelled by her success in winning votes in her party's primaries. She serves, not as an adviser, but as a principal, taking office as of right rather than through the sufferance of her nominal boss.


By way of his appointment of Hillary, President-elect Obama has set the stage for a civil war within his administration. The rivalry between the State Department and the National Security Council (NSC) has always been sharp. NSC Adviser Henry Kissinger dueled with Secretary of State Bill Rogers. NSC Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski battle Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. The Bush administration's first term was animated by the rivalry between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. The conflicts between these two powerful poles in the foreign policy universe have been epic. But now the push-pull between the White House and the State Department is likely to become particularly inflamed.


As long as Obama is riding high, everything will be fine. But should his ratings falter, can anyone doubt that it will be Hillary Clinton to whom worried Democrats will turn to offer an alternative in 2012?


Lyndon Johnson inherited a Cabinet with his rival, Bobby Kennedy, and got rid of him as soon as he decently could. Obama has imported his rival.


But the designation of Hillary is only one part of a Cabinet Obama has assembled without any reference to the loyalty of its members to his presidency. I doubt that he carried his own Cabinet in the primaries against Hillary. He has appointed the identical government that one would have expected under a President Hillary Clinton. The only difference is that he is president.


What does this administration say about Obama? Does it, at last, offer a real clue as to who he truly is?


I believe that it reveals that he is a man who never really expected to be president and now is rather awed by what he has achieved. Here's a guy who was on a very successful book tour in late 2006 before his success at signings went to his head. As long as he seemed able to draw and dazzle crowds, he figured, Why not run for president? Knowing he'd probably lose, he saw no harm in trying. Then, as his candidacy developed more momentum with each speech, he moved closer and closer to the White House. But, on arrival, he doesn't know quite what to do with the power. So he is assembling around him the permanent government of the Democratic Party in the hopes that they will know what to do.


Hillary might do well as secretary of State. She has the toughness and energy that the job requires and the single-minded dedication to achieving a goal that it demands. At last, she need not adopt a phony pose. She has a real job that she has earned on her own. She can show her real strengths of prioritization, skilled advocacy and determination.


But her appointment, and that of her cronies to most of the other top positions in the Obama government, makes it very likely that Obama will be unable to impress his own mark on his presidency. It is not just that he has appointed a "team of rivals." It is that he has hired the coach, quarterback and stars of the rival team and now hopes that they will listen to him rather than to one another.

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.



Dick Morris Archives


© 2008, Dick Morris

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