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

What did Hillary know and when did she know it and why has she flown under the radar on “Operation Gun Walker?

Breaking:  New Evidence Shows Progressive Anti-Gun Pro-UN Hillary a Mastermind Behind Gunwalker… making it ever more obvious that this entire operation and the reason behind “Fast and Furious” was to create a false flag to defeat the 2nd Amendment.

Last week it was reported that the State Department and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were deeply involved in the scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious, or Project Gunwalker. Today, however, new evidence has surfaced indicating that not only was Hillary deeply involved in the scandal but was one of the masterminds behind it.

According to investigative citizen journalist Mike Vanderboegh, sources close to the development of the Gunwalker scheme state that early on, Hillary and her trusted associated at State, Andrew J. Shapiro, devised at least part of the framework of what would later become Operation Fast and Furious. It was Shapiro who first described the details of the proposed scheme early in 2009 just after the Obama Administration took office.

Congressman Darrel Issa, Chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee has recently called for an independent special prosecutor, could this travesty bring down the administration and end the career of Hillary Clinton?

It certainly looks as this entire scenario that resulted in untold number of people being killed in Mexico along with a US. Border Patrol Agent, Brian Terry and ICE Special Agent Jamie Zapata were killed in Mexico in February 2011 while on assignment. He was killed by a gun traced back to Operation Fast and Furious (Gun Walker) neither the Terry or the Zapata’s families will ever see justice. According to Mexico’s Attorney General, at least 200 of its citizens have been murdered in this operation.

We start breaking up the NWO crowd by sending this woman and all involved to federal prison with no opportunity for presidential clemency or pardon.

Justice may not be rendered because the Obama/Holder Justice Department has absolutely no interest in Justice. If fact a better name for the department would be the Department of Injustice, as it stalls, and perjurers while testifying before the Congressional Oversight Committee run by Congressman Darrell Issa.

“We have to recognize and accept that the demand for drugs from the United States drives them north, and the guns that are used by the drug cartels against the police and the military, 90 percent of them come from America.”

The person who spoke the words quoted above was Hillary Clinton. The year was 2009 in an interview with Lara Logan of CBS News, just prior to a trip to Mexico City to meet with Mexican officials concerning gun and drug smuggling.

Her statement shows that not only was the State Department heavily involved in the Gun Walker scandal but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself was at the forefront of pushing the false assertion that ’90% of the guns used by Mexican drug cartels come from the United States.’ It has only now been discovered the extent to which Clinton was involved.

This is, in essence, Hillary’s smoking gun, the bombshell proof that she was personally involved in what became known as the Operation Gun Walker scandal–an illegal scheme that was concocted in order to claim that draconian new gun restrictions and gun bans were needed in the United States, given that ‘most of the guns criminals use in Mexico come from America.’

As previously reported, the meme parroted by Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano, and Hillary Clinton concerning the number of American guns used by criminals in Mexico was patently false, and they knew it was false. This is precisely why the Obama Administration concocted the scheme in the first place. If the facts do not prove that 90% of the guns come from the States, then make sure those numbers can be proved correct by walking the guns straight across the southern border directly into the hands of criminals.

Thus, the State Department, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the ATF, the FBI, ICE, and a host of other federal agencies went to work to send thousands of guns across the border, deliberately placing them in the hands of the cartels.

And despite the Administration’s claim that this was done only in order to trace the guns to criminals so that they could be found, arrested, and prosecuted, not a single arrest was made resulting from Gun Walker in spite of the fact that at the very least, 2500 guns were sent to Mexican criminals by the U.S. government.

One month after Hillary’s trip to Mexico, Barack Obama visited with Mexican President Calderon, where he stated once again, “This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States. More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border.”

This was a blatant, barefaced lie.

But where did this notoriously false assertion originate? Mike Vanderboegh has uncovered the source. It came from none other than rabid anti-gun Senators Dianne Feinstein and Dick Durbin, both Democrats, who stated in a hearing during March of 2009:

Durbin said: “According to ATF [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives], more than 90 percent of the guns seized after raids or shootings in Mexico have been traced right here to the United States of America.” Feinstein added: “It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico used to shoot judges, police officers, mayors, kidnap innocent people and do terrible things come from the United States, and I think we must put a stop to that.”

The problem, however, is that when both NPR and Fox News–one liberal, one conservative–put that 90% figure to a fact-check, it came up sorely lacking. The actual number was closer to 17% at the most, according to Fox. And even NPR, after a contentious interview with an Obama Administration official, totally debunked the 90% claim, although they could not determine the exact number. And as Pajamas media later discovered, the correct figure was a mere 8%.

This prompted Vanderboegh to state the following:

So, not 17 percent, says the NPR expert, but not 90 percent either. This might result in the down fall of this administration in members of congress had any testosterone or estrogen circulating in their pathetic bodies.

The Secretary of State said 90 percent. The President said 90 percent. The Senators said 90 percent. NPR is not FOX. Even their supporters watch NPR, so does most of the media elite and nattering nabobs, as Spiro Agnew once called them. 90 percent has been discredited, at least in part. According to my sources, this did not go over well with Hillary. Not at all.

Documents and data made available from this time period in the scandal also show that the big question among Administration officials was how to push for massive new gun control and ‘assault weapons’ bans without paying a heavy political price for it…more evidence that from the start the entire scheme was not about catching criminals but restricting the Constitutional rights of American citizens.

By Jim Campbell  - Posted to We the People

Below is a little History Lesson On Hillary and Guns:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was on to something when she conceded that America shares blame for the crime and violence that has engulfed Mexico as a result of drug prohibition. Being who she is, of course, Clinton blamed demand for drugs, rather than prohibition as the culprit, and threw in a pointless call for additional restrictions on firearms.  Continue reading on Examiner.com If Hillary Clinton wants to end Mexico's drug violence, she should call for legalization - National Civil Liberties | Examiner.com [link to www.examiner.com]

And:

“Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade,” Mrs. Clinton said, using unusually blunt language. “Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians.” [link to www.nytimes.com]

Hillary Snaps! I'm Secretary of State, Not My Husband!

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost her cool Monday after a Congolese student, speaking through a translator, asked her what "Mr. Clinton" thought about a Chinese trade deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

I saw the wire reports about this earlier and rolled my eyes at the suggestion that she’d gotten truly angry, figuring the media was overplaying it to goose the “Bill’s marginalizing Hillary!” narrative after his North Korea trip. Then I watched the video.

… Michelle Malkin

Yep, yep, yep… It does appear that Hillary is buckling under the pressure of being marginalized by the Obama Administration, especially after Bill was sent to North Korea last week, plus perhaps a little fatigue.

Is Obama Hiding Hillary?

Is a fractured elbow keeping Hillary out of the limelight, or are there more sinister forces at work?

Diplomatic hot spots are popping up everywhere, in spite of President Obama's "adopt an evil-doer" doctrine. We have real-live crises in Honduras, North Korea and Iran; things are dicey in Afghanistan, China is ever problematic and Mexico is a mess. Not to worry: the administration is on top of things. Joe Biden is trying to make Iraq's leaders play nice in their sandbox, President Obama is becoming the Russians' new BFF, Richard Holbrooke has been meeting with G8 foreign ministers in Trieste, and George Mitchell convened recently with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's last gig was...installing Jose Villarreal as the Commissioner for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo? Boy, has she been had.

Is a fractured elbow keeping Hillary out of the limelight, or are there more sinister forces at work? Could her virtual disappearance have anything to do with sky-high approval ratings -- ratings suggesting that Americans might favor Clinton over Obama in future scuffles?

Barack Obama, who campaigned as new to the whole partisan, "inside the Beltway" world of politics, is a fast learner. His cunning elimination of Hillary Clinton as a political threat will be a case study someday in the Handbook of Power Politics. Tapping her to be part of his administration was of course brilliant; she can't snipe from the sidelines, and she, moreover, will carry the president's baggage, at least in the realm of foreign policy. Placing in front of her several showy envoys to cover the big tasks was clever too. But recently, Obama has dug the hole even deeper.

Not only has Clinton been off center stage, some of her most visible moments of late have spotlighted her carrying out the world's most thankless assignment -- criticizing Israel. First she lectured our allies about treating Palestinians poorly and then she ramped up the pressure about its disputed settlements. Not one to mince words, she translated President Obama's gentle reproof into a harsh ultimatum, insisting he meant "not some settlements, not outposts, not 'natural growth' exceptions" -- in short NO settlements.

Think about delegating a New York State politician to chastise Israel and its leaders. Short of sending toddlers to undermine the siege of Moscow, it's hard to come up with a more daunting mission. If she continues as the heavy in this new relationship with Israel, Hillary Clinton can kiss goodbye to any future ambitions that rely on her raising money in the Jewish community -- or that is, almost any ambitions at all. Overcoming initial hostility due to her memorable smooching with the wife of Yassir Arafat, Clinton worked hard to woo the well-heeled Jewish vote. She succeeded. In the primaries, according to CBS News, she garnered 54% of the Jewish vote, compared to only 43% for Barack Obama. (Of course, it may have been the "Hussein" that threw Jewish voters off.) For President Obama, separating Hillary Clinton from the nipple of Jewish generosity is an insurance policy.

Why would Obama need to undermine Hillary Clinton? For starters, the public is beginning to warm to our Secretary of State as never before. In May, her polling topped Obama's. Clinton had a 71% approval rating, compared to 65% for the president. That's the kind of comparison that could furrow a brow or two.

Moreover, it is entirely conceivable that our ambitious young president could run into trouble. He has undertaken one gigantic initiative after another, potentially undermining the economic recovery. As investors have assessed soaring budget deficits, they have demanded higher returns on Treasuries. Rising interest rates have eliminated one powerful balm for consumers -- mortgage refinancing. Higher taxes are inevitable, and will further pressure any rebound in spending. Unemployment numbers are dreadful, businesses are apprehensive, unions are demanding payback for their support and our trading partners are grumpy about rising protectionism. It's not a pretty picture.

Though Obama has tried to make Congress the fall guy should healthcare prove disastrous or cap-and-trade disruptive, Americans are not so dumb. They know where this whirlwind of change is coming from, and they are increasingly uneasy. Should our Afghanistan adventures prove as punishing for our GIs as they have for every other power enticed into that miserable landscape, should GM come back to the people's feeding trough, should Chavez et al continue to make the president look foolish, Americans may seek relief -- and they may spell it HILLARY.

Reuters - Liz Peek is a financial columnist.

Posted:  Knowledge Creates Power

• The Incredible Shrinking Clintons

Obama Perpetuates The '90 Percent Of Mexico's Weapons Come From The U.S....

Quote: Why Does Obama Continue to Blame America???

Obama Perpetuates The '90 Percent Of Mexico's Weapons Come From The U.S....

Quote: "A demand for these drugs in the United States is what is helping keep these cartels in business ... more than 90% of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States," President Barack Obama said Thursday. However, Fox News debunked this claim weeks ago: "It's just not true. In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S."

Fox Report: Mexican guns not from US

Only About 10% of Weapons Used By Mexican Drug Cartels Come From America Says Former Drug Czar William Bennett William Bennett, former drug czar, verifies that the notion being floated by liberal media and the Obama administration, but disputed by most reliable sources, on the weapons used by Mexican Drug Cartels coming primarily from the United States ‘is false’!!!

Secretary of State Clinton and others have tried to push the notion that 90% of the weapons flowing into Mexico come from the United States. That has already been repudiated. In reality 90% of the weapons captured from the Cartels,that they could identify, were from the United States. That is because the United Stats is diligent at marking the weapons produced in the U.S. for identification which is now being used against us by our own government.

In reality only between 10% and 15% of all weapons used by the Mexican drug cartels come from the United States; William Bennett said 10% in his interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s Situation Room. And if anyone should know, it would be William Bennett!

Dr. William Bennett serves as a political contributor and Republican strategist on CNN’s The Situation Room.

In addition to serving as a CNN contributor, Bennett is the host of a nationally broadcast radio show called Morning in America. In the 1980s, Bennett was the secretary of education and the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities under President Ronald Reagan. Following that, he served as President George H.W. Bush's "drug czar." He currently serves as chairman of Americans for Victory over Terrorism, a project dedicated to sustaining and strengthening public opinion as the war on terrorism moves forward.

Also an author, Bennett has written and edited 16 books, including The Book of Virtues and The Children's Book of Virtues. The success of The Book of Virtues led to the creation of a PBS series, seen in the United States, Great Britain and 65 other countries.

In April 2005, Bennett was described in the New York Times as the "leading spokesman of the Traditional Values wing of the Republican Party."

Bennett studied philosophy earning his bachelor’s degree at Williams College and his doctorate at the University of Texas. He earned his law degree from Harvard University. He is the Washington fellow of the Claremont Institute.

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