Former Clinton WH Counsel Lanny Davis Struggles To List Hillary’s Achievements At State Dept

Audio: Lanny Davis Struggles to come up with any Hillary Clinton Accomplishment at State Department.

AskMarion:

In an interview with Hugh Hewitt, Former Clinton White House Counsel and spin doctor Lanny Davis had a hard time listing Hillary’s achievement while Secretary of State:

HH: If I ever get in serious, serious trouble, I think I’m going to try and find Lanny Davis. Now only is he a friend of my friend, Michael Medved, and a friend of my friend, Mark Gearan. He is widely regarded as one of the great spin masters of Washington, D.C. He has brand new book out called Crisis Tales: Five Rules For Coping With Crises In Business, Politics And Life. Lanny Davis, welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show, great to talk to you.

LD: I love being on your show, Hugh. And I hope you never need my services, but thank you.

HH: Well, there are a couple of things in here. First of all, selling the planes to Pakistan when you came up with the nine words, the money or the planes, what’s fair is fair, that’s a beautiful chapter, but I still don’t want to sell planes to Pakistan. I mean, that was, I kept saying Lanny, you’re selling me. I don’t want them. It’s not fair. They’re running the Taliban, so what’s fair? Did that work?

LD: Well, first of all, this is way back when, so you’re dating me, and I have to date myself. So this is when Benazir Bhutto was the small d democrat, and elected by a popular landslide and ran a small d democracy with secular Islamic views. That was the ideal Islamic democracy in the world, Turkey being at the time another example. So this is when Pakistan was truly our friend and Benazir Bhutto was an inspirational leader. And we owed Pakistan, literally owed Pakistan $600 million dollars. We had their money, we had their planes, and they wanted one or the other back, and we were stuck and couldn’t give either one back. And that’s when I helped Prime Minister Bhutto with President Clinton.

HH: It’s a fascinating story. We didn’t know at the time that the ISI was helping the Taliban become our nightmare, so your hands are clean on that. But it’s a fascinating story. I also loved your mix up with Garry Trudeau, your fellow Yalie, over the misapplication of facts with regards to the Ivory Coast incident, covered in great detail. But I love your takeaway. Don’t represent yourself.

LD: My punch line is that Garry Trudeau had very good company in ignoring the facts that ultimately came out, which is that I was helping the State Department and the President of the United States get this thug out of the trenches in the Ivory Coast, and save lives. But I couldn’t tell everybody what I was doing, because it was covert. So I violated my transparency rule. I paid the penalty and I had a fool for a client, namely me.

HH: Well, Crisis Tales is full of good stuff, and I recommend it to anyone. But now I want your crisis advice for an old client of yours. Former Secretary of State Clinton brought up Benghazi sua sponte yesterday. That means on her own, for the benefit of the Steelers fans. And it raised more questions than it answered. When does she need to sit down and give us the specifics of what she was doing that night, where she went, and why she never called back Mr. Hicks?

LD: Well, first of all, I’m not sure Mr. Hicks ever called her. That’s not a fact. It’s actually not true that he ever called her. And secondly, she’s done that. She’s testified in front of two Congressional committees, and I’m sure she’d be willing to do it again and again and again, because the most decisive comment she made is when she was accused of a systemic failure in her own department by a panel that she appointed. Ambassador Pickering, a Republican administration senior official at the State Department and ambassador for a Republican president, Bush I, and Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, neither one of them exactly partisans, investigated what happened in Benghazi, and found that the State Department had a systemic failure of leadership at the mid-levels, that communications did not occur very well, and she accepted personal responsibility in all 64 recommendations for change. So…

HH: But Lanny, neither the Ambassador nor the Admiral spoke to her personally under oath, and she did in fact talk with Mr. Hicks. That’s under oath and testified to. She talked to him at 2am in the morning on a conference call, and she never called him back. I’m curious if you would recommend to her that she sit down for a one hour with Jake Tapper, or with Bret Baier, or with a serious journalist, not Andrea Mitchell, not someone who will lie down and sweep the ground before she walks on it, but a serious, probing question about why she ran away, because she ran away that night.

LD: Well, I don’t believe she ran away, but we shouldn’t debate things we are both uncertain of. Let’s both agree that this is an issue she has to address, will address. My philosophy is the more information out, the better for her. And at some point, I certainly agree with you she’ll have to retell the story. I think we have a difference of opinion whether she already has, but I certainly agree with your premise that as long as these questions are nagging, the ultimate solution, as I always say in my book, is tell it all, tell it early, tell it yourself. She’s very, very sorry about the loss of her friend. She’s taken responsibility, and I think she ultimately will follow even your advice, Hugh.

HH: Well, I like your advice. Tell it all, tell it early, tell it yourself. She has not told it all. She hasn’t told it early. What she has said, she’s used other people to do so. But what about, who would you recommend she sit down with for like a Chris Christie longest day press conference? He did two hours. Should she do the same sort of thing, Lanny Davis?

LD: Well, first of all, we’re just going to have to disagree in respect to have differences of opinion with being as to whether she already has answered all the questions. But I think she ultimately will have to do it again if she decides to run for president, and I have no idea who she should sit down with. I kind of laughed in the middle of your mentioning Andrea Mitchell, because the last time I saw Andrea Mitchell, she was extremely tough on the Clinton White House. But she’s got to sit down with a credible journalist and answer all questions if she wants to run for president. Not just Benghazi, but your life is transparent. It’s pretty tough out there as Chris Christie has discovered. I’m not satisfied with Chris Christie’s explanation. He could have spent four more hours, and he still hasn’t answered the basic question why did you sit and watch that traffic jam and didn’t pick up the phone and call your buddy at the Port Authority and say what the heck is going on here?

HH: And that, by the way, America, that was…

LD: He’s never answered that question.

HH: That was a perfect bit of Lanny Davis diversion. That was eloquent, actually. He knows I’m burrowing in on Hillary, and so he brings up Chris Christie and thinks it’s like shouting squirrel. But Lanny, I’ve got to go back. Jake Tapper said ten minutes ago we don’t know what she did that night. Nobody knows what she did after the 2am call with Hicks. Don’t we need a timeline? Don’t we deserve to know what the woman in charge of the State Department under siege actually did, because I think she ran away, and she has never answered with specificity and particularity what she did that night.

LD: So it looks like you just changed the topic from my Chris Christie point, but the answer is I’ve already given, I already gave you the answer, Hugh. So I don’t know if I can…

HH: All right. Let me ask…

LD: …more time, which is at some point, at some point, if she runs for president, Benghazi and every other issue she’s being criticized for, and I happen to believe that there are only a handful of people that hold Benghazi against her. I don’t think that that’s a serious political issue for her.

HH: Okay, then give me one more thing.

LD: But she’s got to do it. She’s got to do it if she runs for president. And she knows that.

HH: All right, one question, you’ve got a minute. Summarize for me what she accomplished as Secretary of State.

LD: Well, the biggest thing of all is goodwill around the world, which is what secretaries of State do.

HH: Like in Syria…

LD: I don’t know what any secretary of State…

HH: …and Egypt and Libya?

LD: I don’t know, well, Libya and certainly the intervention in Libya and getting rid of Qaddafi, you would say that’s a pretty good achievement for the President. But these are presidential achievements with a partnership of the secretary of State. What do secretaries of State do? For example, she was very instrumental in the details of the Iranian sanctions program, which has produced, apparently, some results. I’m very skeptical about this deal in Iran on the nuclear weaponry. But the credit she deserves on this sanctions program, which literally was her program in the State Department to enforce, but in partnership with Barack Obama.

HH: So her achievement is that…

LD: But this doesn’t change the question about the secretary of State having achievement. This is a secretary of State is the most popular woman in the world and restored relations with everyone in the world.

HH: All right, Lanny, we’re out of time, but your achievement is one that’s been swept away by the President.

End of interview.

Technorati Tags: Hillary,Lanny Davis,Hugh Hewitt,Secretary of State,Hillary Clinton,Truth,Benghazi,Scandals,Election 2016

Hillary Clinton Aide Tells Reporter To “F _ck Off” And “Have A Good Life”

BuzzFeed Politics:

As the State Department's story about what happened in Benghazi crumbles, Clinton's personal spokesperson, Philippe Reines, loses his temper. “Have a good day. And by good day I mean Fuck Off.”

Clinton and Reines in China in 2010. Source: farm5.staticflickr.com

Posted Sep 24, 2012 1:11pm EDT

On Sunday morning, BuzzFeed correspondent Michael Hastings emailed Philippe Reines, Hillary Clinton's longtime aide and personal spokesman at the State Department, asking a series of pointed questions about State's handling of the Benghazi fiasco, and Reines' over-the-top attack on CNN. The emails quickly got personal, with Reines calling Hastings an "unmitigated asshole" before an exchange of harsh words on both sides.

The email chain concluded with Reines writing that Hastings should "Fuck Off" and "Have a good life."

The full exchange (with one typo fixed) is below.

From: Michael Hastings
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 10:32 AM
To: Reines, Philippe I
Subject: Request for comment

Hey Philippe:

A few quick questions for you. Why didn't the State Department search the consulate and find AMB Steven's diary first? What other potential valuable intelligence was left behind that could have been picked up by apparently anyone searching the grounds? Was any classified or top secret material also left? Do you still feel that there was adequate security at the compound, considering it was not only overrun but sensitive personal effects and possibly other intelligence remained out for anyone passing through to pick up? Your statement on CNN sounded pretty defensive--do you think it's the media's responsibility to help secure State Department assets overseas after they've been attacked?

Let me know if you have a second.Michael

______________________________________
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 11:28 AM, Reines, Philippe I wrote:

Good morning Michael

I'm adding my colleague Toria Nuland who I believe you know. She has addressed much of your questions below during her daily press briefings, so I'll let her weigh in to remind you of what's already been thoroughly answered. As far as the tone of my email, I think you're misreading mine as much as I'm misreading yours as being needlessly antagonistic.

But on your questions pertaining to CNN's handling of the diary:

• You know that all USG personnel were evacuated from Benghazi after the attack. So I'm not sure why you're asking why State didn't find the diary first.

• On material, I'll let Toria reiterate, but the answer is no. Though you might want to ask CNN if they took anything else from the crime scene that they haven't yet told anyone about.

• In terms of the media's responsibility, I'll start with the outlandish statement that I believe the media does have responsibilities. Your question seems to imply they have none and any expectation of responsible behavior is too much to ask. To be specific:I believe CNN had the responsibility to act as human beings and be sensitive to their loss when they first approached the family.

I believe CNN had a responsibility to not make promises to the family it would not keep.

If that's too much to ask, I believe CNN had at the very least a responsibility to make their intentions on the use of Chris's diary clear to the family from the outset.

I believe CNN had a responsibility to not deceive its own viewers for more than 48 hours on the source of their reporting, using convoluted attribution they themselves had to clarify, before admitting it was the diary they were relying on.

I believe that when they finally did admit to using Chris's diary, they had a responsibility to their viewers and to the family to explain why they broke their pledge.

I believe that many within CNN agree with everything I'm saying.

More than anything else, I believe that CNN - since they had already read every word of the diary before calling the family on Friday the 14th, the day Chris's remains were returned home - had all the information they needed at that point to make an editorial decision on whether the contents of the diary compelled them to report on it. I believe the time to invoke their standards to justify using the diary came six days late. I believe that CNN, if they felt strongly that they had an obligation to use the diary should never have presented the family with a choice in the first place that they'd later disregard.

I don't believe that CNN should get credit for issuing a flimsy confession only when caught with their hands in the cookie jar. I believe the statement CNN issued late last night, 24 hours after Anderson Cooper's ill-conceived statement on air, basically says they agreed not to use it until they didn't feel like it anymore, and only admitted to it when they were about to be caught. I don't believe that's much of a profile in courage.

Lastly, I believe that you of all people, after famously being accused of violating agreed upon ground rules and questionable sourcing, would agree that it's important for a news organization to maintain its own integrity if it is to be trusted. That begins with keeping its word. If you can't manage that, then don't give it.

I realize that the way this works is that you only you get to ask me questions, but I have one for you: if you were in Benghazi, went to the scene of the attack, found the ambassador's diary, read every word of it, would you have called them and asked their permission to use it, then when you weren't granted that permission agree that you wouldn't use it in any way, and then a few days later just change your mind?

If the answer is yes, then you obviously agree that CNN handled this perfectly fine.

If the answer is no, if you would have decided its contents demanded reporting immediately, how would you have handled this differently then CNN?

And you should feel free to use every word above, in its entirety. Though I suspect you won't.

Philippe

______________________________________
From: Michael Hastings
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 12:04 PM
To: Reines, Philippe I Cc: Nuland, Victoria J
Subject: Re: Request for comment

Philippe:

Thanks for getting back to me. No, you read my email correctly--I found your statement to CNN offensive.

From my perspective, the scandal here is that the State Department had such inadequate security procedures in place that four Americans were killed. And then the Ambassador's diary--and who knows what else--was left behind for anyone to pick up. Thankfully, it was CNN--and not Al Qaeda or some other militia--that found it and was able to return it to the family. That CNN used portions of the material in the diary they found at the scene--material that appears to contradict the official version of events that State/WH has been putting out--is completely in line with practices of good journalism.

I don't know how involved Arwa Damon has been in this. But for what it's worth, Arwa is one of the best war correspondents working today. She's consistently risked her life to get these stories, and to find out what actually happens in these conflict zones.I do agree that the media has lots of responsibilities, and CNN fulfilled its responsibility by returning the diary while still managing to inform the American public of newsworthy information. So it's unfortunate that you are trying to make a scapegoat out of CNN. That State was forced to flee Benghazi--again, because of such inadequate security, leaving behind all sorts of sensitive information--tells us more about DoS than CNN.

The misinformation here seems largely to be coming from State and the administration. The defense that the administration has offered that there was no intelligence warning of an attack is weak. If there was no intel, then clearly the CIA and other intel agents stationed in Benghazi weren't doing their jobs well. If there was intel, then we have some kind of cover-up--whether out of incompetence or ass covering before the election or just the trauma of losing four good men, it's hard for me to say at this point.

All the best,

Michael

______________________________________
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 12:45 PM, Reines, Philippe I wrote:

Why do you bother to ask questions you've already decided you know the answers to?

______________________________________
From: Michael Hastings
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 12:50 PM
To: Reines, Philippe I Cc: Nuland, Victoria J
Subject: Re: Request for comment

Why don't you give answers that aren't bullshit for a change?

______________________________________
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 1:38 PM, Reines, Philippe I wrote:
I now understand why the official investigation by the Department of the Defense as reported by The Army Times The Washington Post concluded beyond a doubt that you're an unmitigated asshole.

How's that for a non-bullshit response?

Now that we've gotten that out of our systems, have a good day.

And by good day, I mean Fuck Off

______________________________________
From: Michael Hastings
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 01:40 PM
To: Reines, Philippe I Cc: Nuland, Victoria J
Subject: Re: Request for comment

Hah--I now understand what women say about you, too! Any new complaints against you lately?

______________________________________
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 1:48 PM, Reines, Philippe I wrote:

Talk about bullshit - answer me this: Do you only traffic in lies, or are you on the ground floor of creating them?

And since Fuck Off wasn't clear enough, I'm done with you. Inside of 5 minutes when I can log into my desktop, you'll be designated as Junk Mail.

Have a good life Michael.

______________________________________
From: Michael Hastings
Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 1:50 PM
Subject: Re: Request for comment
To: "Reines, Philippe I" Cc: "Nuland, Victoria J"

I'll take that as a non-denial denial.

All the best,

Michael

Technorati Tags: Hillary,Hillary Clinton,Benghazi,State Department,reporters,media,Hillary Aide,Hillary Clinton Aide,watch the other hand,Philippe Reines

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EU Times:

World-famous mistress of former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky decided to make some more money on her controversial past. Lewinsky will write memoires. The former White House trainee negotiates the details of her book with major publishers.

Reportedly, the forgotten sex scandal star has already requested $12 million for her confessions, including those about her relationship with Clinton. Many believe that her story is not worth the money. However, Lewinsky has not signed the deal, although several publishers are interested in the publication of the book.

Meanwhile, American journalists try to show as much humor as they can in their comments about the Lewinsky confessions, BFM.Ru reports. TJ Walker, a famous columnist with Forbes and The Wall Street Journal tried to guess what the new book was going to be about: “What is it? A time capsule? What time is it? 1998? It’s been 14 years since we had to look at this woman day after day. She got her millions from that. She had her Barbara Walters sit-down. And now she is going to write another book. What in the world is she going to say in it? Is it – “nobody has given a damn about me for 14 years?” Second chapter: “I am an idiot. I’ve never done anything interesting in my entire life other than fooling around with the president.” Chapter Three: “I’ve done a handbag campaign and a bunch of other things, but they all were a failure because everyone thought of me as that one thing.”

Monica has not confirmed her plans about the memories yet, but her friends told reporters what her new book could be about. According to one of them, she can share what she knows about Bill’s insatiable desires for threesomes, orgies and sex toys of all kinds, RBC says.

The president’s ex-lover recalled how he spoke disparagingly of his wife, calling her a “cold fish” and making fun of her “non-existent sex life.” Bill Clinton also suggested that Hillary had also cheated on him.

Rumor has it that Hillary Clinton knows about Lewinsky’s plans and is furious about it, Express Gazeta wrote. If the book is ever published, the sitting secretary of state will hardly ever become president.

Of course the possibility of a Hillary Clinton presidency is all but gone now, anyway, now that Americans realize that it was Hillary who made the decision not to send Marines to our Consulate in Benghazi Libya that resulted in the murder and torture of our Ambassador Christopher Stevens and 3 additional Americans, added to by 9-days of lies by Hillary herself, the State Department and the White House about the cause of the events in Egypt, the terror attack on American soil (our Consulate) in Libya and throughout the Middle East and much of the world.

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IRAN CONS HILLARY ON NUKES

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has fallen for Iran's line that it is not developing nuclear weapons, but only wants the ability to develop one to achieve its place in the sun among the great nations of the earth.

In an interview on a Sunday show and in a leak in The New York Times that seems to have come from her (since it uses the same language), she notes that "there's a small space for doubt [about Iran's intention to build a bomb] because there are some contrary indicators. There is no doubt in my mind that they want nuclear energy and nuclear power, which they are entitled to, to be able to use it for peaceful purposes. The real problem is once you do that and you get what's called a breakout capacity, it's not long before you could do the other [build a bomb]. So that's why this is so important to address now."

Pressed to comment on a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it was clear Iran was headed toward building a bomb, Hillary demurred.

"Well, they -- we -- we are doing this [pushing for sanctions] because we think they're heading there. But whether they want to get what's called the breakout capacity and stop, knowing that they could then move forward, that's where the question comes."

Wow. The same theme -- that Iran just wants to be able to make a bomb, not to actually make one -- was annunciated in a New York Times story that likely had its origins in Hillary's newfound doubts.

Why the hell would Iran want to develop highly enriched uranium if not to make a bomb? And why would it enrich uranium in the first place if it did not want to enrich it enough to build a weapon? Why would it spend billions and incur all manner of international obloquy and sanctions just to get bragging rights and be able to say that it could build a bomb?

Does the nation with the world's second-largest reserves of oil really need nuclear power to turn on its lights? Or is Iran so green that it can't stand to contribute to global climate change?
That our secretary of State is naïve and inexperienced enough to fall for this line is incredible. That she might have been president is worse. And that the real president may be falling for it, too, is beyond worse.

Ever since the Cold War started, it has been an article of faith that, in assessing enemy power, we measure his capacity and not his intentions. Intentions can change in the blink of an eye. Capacity endures forever.

Iran has a huge incentive to try to fool the world for just a few more months. Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton warns that it has purchased from Russia -- and already paid for -- a highly advanced anti-aircraft missile system that would be exceedingly effective against every bomber except for stealth aircraft, of which Israel has none.

Has it been delivered? Is it installed? Are the Iranians trained to use it? Nobody knows. But Bolton is clear that once it is operational, as he puts it, "the military option is out."

So Iran's game is obviously to stall Israeli action by deceiving the world into believing that it merely wants the capacity to go nuclear -- "breakout" capability -- rather than to build an actual bomb.
Iran even proffers a willingness to lend its stock of somewhat enriched uranium to other nations -- presumably its buddy Russia -- for further enrichment. (Presumably, the Russians would not enrich it all the way to the point where it could be weaponized.)

Iran says it wants enriched fuel to power a medical research facility. The West hopes that if Iran lent out its supply of slightly enriched uranium, it would not have enough in situ to enrich the amount it would need for a bomb. But, obviously, once it gets the uranium back, it can do with it as it pleases. If it agrees to inspection, it can always kick the inspectors out.

While Iran is negotiating "in good faith," there would be hell to pay if Israel attacked "prematurely." So, by enticing the world with this complex scheme, all the while enriching God knows how much uranium in secret, Iran hopes to prolong the negotiations until it has the air defense system. Then the military option -- which is Iran's sole motivation for even participating in these talks -- will be closed and Israel will not be able to attack.

That Hillary Clinton would allow herself to be conned into believing that Iran doesn't really, really, really want to build -- much less use -- a big, bad bomb would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous.

By Dick Morris, Author of Catastrophe - TheHill.com

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING CLINTONS

Asked why he was naming some of his rivals to top administration jobs, President Lyndon B. Johnson said it best: "I'd rather have them inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in." President Obama seems to echo Johnson's management style in his handling of Bill and Hillary Clinton. By bringing them into his inner circle, he has marginalized them both and sharply reduced their freedom of action.
It may appear odd to describe a secretary of State as marginalized, but Obama has surrounded Hillary with his people and carved up her jurisdiction geographically. Former Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine) is in charge of Arab-Israeli relations. Dennis Ross has Iran. Former U.N. Ambassador Dick Holbrooke has Pakistan and Afghanistan. And Hillary has to share her foreign policy role on the National Security Council (NSC) with Vice President Biden, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, CIA chief Leon Panetta, and NSC staffer Samantha Powers (who once called Hillary a "monster").

With peers who are competitors and subordinates who can deal directly with the president, Hillary is reduced to announcing foreign aid packages for Pakistan while Holbrooke does the heavy lifting.

Part of Hillary's problem is the institutional shrinking of the State Department. During the Bush years, while war raged, the Defense Department became more relevant to the conduct of foreign policy. And, under Obama, the financial crisis has propelled the Treasury into the forefront. State, with its emphasis on traditional diplomacy, has been forced to take a back seat. Even though Obama appointed Hillary, he clearly has not been willing to make her a co-president and confines her to the diminished role of her department.

For his part, Bill Clinton has been asked to be a special envoy to Haiti. Yes, Haiti. Obama's predecessor asked the former president to orchestrate the response to the Asian tsunami and then to Hurricane Katrina. Obama gives him Haiti.

Meanwhile, both Clintons are effectively muzzled and cannot criticize Obama even as he reverses President Clinton's free market proclivities and budget balancing discipline. Hillary, the supposed friend of Israel, must sit by quietly and watch Iran get the bomb while trying all the while to stop Israel from preventing it.

Bill can't even make money. Denied the ability to accept speeches from foreign governments or their organs and fenced out of continuing his profitable relationship with the Emir of Dubai, he and his wife must accept the loss of the $13 million they spent on her campaign and sit by passively, unable to earn the money to replace it.
Just as Lincoln buried his rivals Seward, Chase and Stanton in the Cabinet and then on the Supreme Court, and Wilson buried Bryan at the State Department, so Obama has hidden his predecessor and his rival in plain sight at the upper reaches of the government.

How long will Hillary subject herself to this discipline? Likely as long as Obama is popular. Should his ratings fade, she might move away from the president and could even consider a primary contest against him in 2012. But while he is on top of his game, she'll stay loyal.

But she is shrinking by the day. Once Obama's equal -- and before that his superior -- she now looks tiny compared to the president. She doesn't look like a president in waiting; she's more like a senior staff member hoping to rise in the bureaucracy. No longer at the head of a movement or the symbol of rising women all over the world, she has faded into the State Department woodwork. She is much less visible than her predecessors Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, James Baker, Madeleine Albright or Condi Rice. She is even less in the public eye than was Al Haig during his one-year tenure. One has to go back to the likes of Warren Christopher or William Rogers to find a secretary of State as far down the totem poll. This diminished status has got to grate on her and on him. But they are trapped in Obama's web and cannot easily escape.

By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com on May 26, 2009

Dick Morris is an American political author and commentator who previously worked as a pollster, political campaign consultant, and general political consultant.  Morris became an adviser to the Bill Clinton administration after Clinton was elected president in 1992.

Posted:  Knowledge Creates Power