Hillary’s power
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There’s been a lot of chatter in Washington recently that Secretary Clinton has been obscured by Barack Obama’s bright star. Her much-hyped speech last week before the Council on Foreign Relations was understood as her attempt to assert herself, as was her botched plan to bring old Clinton loyalist Sid Blumenthal into her stable. On the surface, since Obama’s inauguration, Clinton has been a non-entity in the news. She didn’t even appear on one of the Sunday talk shows until late Spring.
But that completely misses the point. As she recently told colleagues at State, “I broke my elbow, not my larynx.”
The truth of the matter is that, six months into the administration, Hillary is at the top of the heap. Maybe she’s not the president. But people who are undeniably Clintonian in outlook–from Holbrooke, Slaughter, and Mitchell at State, to Ross at the NSC and Rice at UN–populate all corners of the administration. That doesn’t mean they’re politically loyal to the Secretary. But they are practitioners of the Clintonian approach, which has defined Democratic foreign policy for nearly two decades. Fundamentally, this approach combines respect for human rights and democracy with a cold-hearted calculation that old-fashioned hard power sometimes has to be used. In other words: they’re liberal, but they owe a debt to Henry Kissinger (whom Hillary consulted for her CFR speech).
The Clinton White House stumbled onto this approach, only fully grasping it after an early period marked by failures in Haiti and Somalia. Yet they learned lessons, took their blows, and made Clinton’s second term a success in large part because of the Administration’s consistent, smart foreign policy. These lessons, and the ultimately successful struggle to develop a liberal post-Cold War foreign policy, are best laid out in a book called America Between the Wars; it’s no coincidence that one of the book’s authors, Derek Chollet, is now working at the State Department.
Obama therefore has the luxury of avoiding mistakes the Clinton White House initially made. He’s aggressively courted Russia, treating it with more respect than his Democratic predecessor did initially. He’s also done outreach to the Muslim world, combining exhortations to democracy with a practical understanding about national security interests. Of course, not everything has gone well: Obama was reportedly disappointed by his visit to Saudi Arabia. The president felt that King Abdullah should have been more helpful on Israel-Palestine. What was Obama’s response to this disappointment? Bringing Dennis Ross, a Middle East most famed for his work during the Clinton Administration, onto the NSC and thus closer to the White House (as reported by Laura Rozen at FP).
So in terms of policy and personnel, you can’t count Clinton out. As others have noted, although Obama’s willingness to meet with foreign dictators was what differentiated him from HRC on the campaign trail, there are no plans for him to follow through–and given the recent turmoil in Iran, I wouldn’t expect there to be any, any time soon.
One final thought. Hillary’s disappearance from the news has been cited as evidence of her little power. Yet the fact that Obama prefers his subordinates not to make news is widely known–that’s why he’s called No Drama Obama. Hillary’s conspicuous absence is, one imagines, part of what’s ingratiating her to the president.
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I find it quite interesting that there is significant public discourse on how high Ms. Clinton’s profile is or how much power she “really” has. As the secretary of state, her star should be dimmer than the president’s, it would be a problem if it were not. The only questions should be: 1) Are her foreign policies correct and 2) Is she implementing them effectively. She is a big girl, if she is not satisfied with her part on the team, she can quit. Since she gives every indication of being quite satisfied with being one a half full of the most powerful women in the world, it all seems like a much ado about nothing.
I would largely agree–it is much ado about nothing. Of course she’s got power, no matter how many times she shows up on TV. But her power and influence are unique for two key reasons, one substantive and the other less so: she fought a fierce primary contest against her boss, and State was effectively her consolation prize. That means there’s an undeniable human drama to this story. But there’s also a side to this story about ideological development. As the former First Lady, and wife of the last Democratic president, she in part oversaw the creation of a post-Cold War foreign policy for liberalism. How her version of that policy corresponds with Obama’s approach is a fascinating question.
In response to another comment. See in context »Anyone who consults Henry Kissinger is unworthy of respect, and unqualified to be SoS. Obama’s surrounding himself with Clintonians is a major misstep, not something to be lauded. So much for “change”.
Ethan, any theories about why the WH won’t let Sydney Blumenthal into the administration?
I’ve heard two different explanations, both of which make sense, but neither of which I can verify. The first is that, during the primaries, the Obama team fingered Blumenthal as the top Hillary person spreading anti-Obama smears. Understandably then, they don’t want Blumenthal working for President Obama. The second explanation is more innocuous: Sid Blumenthal is not really a foreign policy person in any sense of the word. He’s a writer, a message person, and so the White House rejected putting him at the State Department–which already has a well-oiled message operation.
In response to another comment. See in context »After watching Hillary respond to questions about the North Korean who called her a “schoolgirl” on Meet the Press the other day, I couldn’t help but think that this was her opportunity to step back into the spotlight and show more public tenacity than over the past six months. Do you think that she will kind of slink back into the background, or do you think this will represent a turning point in her public image?