The Queen: The Epic Ambition of Hillary and the Coming of a Second "Clinton Era" (42 page)

HH: Now when you look at it, though, at the former Secretary of State, she’s clearly running for president, but we’ve got Putin unleashed, Libya in shambles, Syria using gas, Egypt is alienated from us, the PRC is cresting, the Norks are nuking up, the mullahs are on the brink, did she get anything done as secretary of State that was good?

NK:
You know, the gains were, in many ways, fairly modest. You had the success in Burma, which as you say, sort of pales next to some of the difficulties. On the other hand, we did deescalate, we did move down from a mess in Iraq, and for now, it’s a somewhat better mess than it was. That may also be true of Afghanistan. And the crisis in the Middle East was, I don’t know that it was handled brilliantly, but it was a mess for anybody who would have
been dealing with it. Likewise, China, North Korea, you know, I don’t think that those are shining successes. I don’t think they’re shining failures. In the case of North Korea, I would, and maybe China, I would say that they were perhaps [handled] marginally more successfully by Hillary than in the Bush administration, although it kind of depends on the moment.

HH: Yeah, because what I’m getting at is the five years that we’ve had of the President Obama-Clinton-Kerry approach, I think the world is much worse off than we were post-financial crisis. The financial crisis is a standalone event that we can debate endlessly, but geopolitically, isn’t America screwed around the world right now?

NK:
I don’t know about that. I mean, I think that al Qaeda is less of a threat now than it was before, although, I mean, it’s all complicated. And in North Africa and West Africa, you have more localized al Qaeda-related affiliated threats. You have the Middle East in greater instability than it had been. On the other hand, in the case of Iran, you have a process that may lead to resolving that crisis, and Iran is no longer kind of rushing on a trajectory toward a nuclear weapon, which it had been for years. And in the case of North Korea, you have a regime that for a long time had, and North Korea is one of the things that really worries me the most. I think now we have a really unstable leader with Kim Jong Un, and he’s one of the people I would really lose sleep over. And we’ll see where that goes.

CHAPTER 43

An Interview with Maggie Haberman, then of
Politico
now of
The New York Times
, October 28, 2013

HH: Joined now by Maggie Haberman of
Politico
.
com
, who had a huge story this morning on Hillary Clinton’s potential 2016 run. Maggie, welcome. It’s good to have you on
The Hugh Hewitt Show
.

MH:
Thanks for having me.

HH: Did the reaction to your column flow in today and raise questions about whether or not she’s actually running? Or does everyone assume she’s running?

MH:
I’ve heard a mixture of reactions. I think that most people think the preponderance of evidence is that she is running. I had actually been among those who had thought she wasn’t running, and I no longer think that. It’s hard to think it after some of the speeches she’s given recently. I think most people think that there is a chance that she won’t run, that those would be for, you know, mostly personal reasons, or the unforeseen. But that chance seems pretty small at the moment.

HH: Now this is a process story that turns primarily on the argument that the biggest complaint about Clinton in 2008, and I’m quoting now, was that she ran a campaign of entitlement, showing feistiness and emotion only after Obama had surged when it was already too late. Is that what you consider, or what your sources consider to be her biggest potential problem this time around? Or is it her record as Secretary of State?

MH:
Well, I think that there are two different issues. And I certainly think that her approach to a campaign will be very significant in terms of how she handles it. I think that her record as Secretary of State is obviously her most
recent, and it is one of the pieces of her curriculum vitae that have been the least looked at, certainly in terms of repeated, in terms of the crux of a campaign and the crucible of a campaign. And I think that it’s relevant. I think that it’s going to come up a lot. I think that people around her are certainly prepared for that, or at least prepared for it to be an issue. How they handle it remains to be seen.

HH: What is her biggest achievement as Secretary of State?

MH:
I think that the folks around her believe that among the biggest achievements was, and you’ve seen this pointed to a lot, was the amount of travel time she logged. They felt very good about the Chinese dissident, and how the disposition of that case went in 2012. I think that what they, and what most people are prepared for is a lot of questions about the aftermath of Benghazi, and I think there was a
60 Minutes
piece about that, that went out yesterday. I think there’s going to be a lot more of that. I think that this is where the fact that most people believe she is running, but she has not set up a team of any kind in any meaningful way, potentially becomes problematic, because if her folks believe that they have something to say in response to that and they’re not, they’re sort of letting time slip away from them.

HH: But pause for a moment with me on the achievement side.

MH:
Sure.

HH: Articulate further. What is it that people say is her achievement? That she logged a lot of miles? What, is she running for George Clooney’s role in
Up In The Air
?

MH:
(laughing) That has been certainly one of the focuses that her folks have talked about. They’ve also talked about how she ran a functional effort at State. Look, I think that when you hear from her world about what her accomplishments were, I think that they genuinely believe that she had made progress in terms of how America was perceived. People can agree or disagree with that. I think that that is obviously been coming into question now, and this is again something I think she’s going to have to talk about more. She’s clearly aware of that, but she’s not saying much about it so far, on the NSA issue. It’s very, very difficult for a former Obama administration official to run a sort of smoke and mirrors campaign on foreign policy. She’s going to have a very hard time doing that.

HH: Well, I know all the critiques, because I’m a conservative talk show host. So I know what all the vulnerabilities are.

MH:
Right.

HH: I’m just curious as to what they think her strengths are, other than, you know, frequent flyer miles.

MH:
Look, they think that she was an effective diplomat. They think that she was good at helping America’s image globally. They have a couple of cases like the case of the Chinese dissident where they think that State played a very effective role. She was among those who was pressing for more action in Syria of a restricted type earlier on than what you saw the Obama administration ultimately do this year. But you know, look, she was not, she certainly was not part of the team that, say, was dealing with Israel. She was not integral in that way, and so I think for some of the issues that are the hottest right now, globally, she was not a key factor in them.

HH: So a Chinese dissident? That’s it?

MH:
Well, I think we will see what they issue as her biggest strength as Secretary of State. That has not been a case they’ve been emphasizing so far. You’ve, I’m sure, read the
New York
Magazine piece, like everybody else, where they talked about again, her time as Secretary of State which was largely mechanical, at least in the focus of that piece, and how they thought she had run an effective effort. Everything with Hillary Clinton gets looked at through the prism of how she manages whatever team she’s running, and that’s been where a lot of the focus has been.

HH: Well, it’s very interesting to me, though, as you report early on, they are going to try, Team Clinton is going to try and give you the talking points, which they hope then enter into the bloodstream, and into the circulatory system of Washington, DC that is
Politico
, and then out through the rest of the country. And what I’m hearing you say is they’ve got a Chinese dissident.

MH:
No, I think, but I think that when you’ve asked me off the top of my head what are some of the things that her folks have pointed to over the last two years, that has certainly been one of the cases.

HH: Anything else, Maggie?

MH:
Yes, there are others, but I’m just not coming up with them at the moment, but, and I’m not trying to avoid the question.

HH: Oh, I know you’re not. I just don’t think there’s anything there. I think, actually, her biggest problem is that there is no there there. She occupied the State Department, and there’s nothing to show for it. I guess there’s this Chinese dissident, but I’m, that’s not, that’s not a name that’s tripping off of my tongue right now. Do you know his name?

MH:
I think that, no, at the moment, I actually cannot think of his name. I think that they’re, I think this is going to be an ongoing problem for her. I think that showing sort of a body of work at State is going to be something that she’s going to be pressed to do increasingly, and I think that running sort of a shadow campaign through paid speeches and free speeches over the course of the next year, I think is going to not cut it eventually, not just for conservative critics, but I think on the left. I think she’s going to have a problem.

HH: But doesn’t this sort of underscore the major problem? Here I am, a conservative critic, and I know the critique. And you’re a mainstream reporter, and as far as I know, you have no ideology. You’re one of the people at
Politico
that I don’t put on the left or the right, you’re just down the middle.

MH:
Yeah.

HH: And neither of us can come up with any claim that she has to having succeeded at anything, and they are not able, they didn’t spin you, because they’ve got nothing to spin you with. It’s like the washing machine’s broke.

MH:
Well, we’ll see. I mean, I think we need to see what they ultimately come up, to be fair. I think that since she’s not yet running, I think looking at how they present her and present what she did there is an open question.

HH: They’ll come up with something. What I’m getting at is, how long have you been with
Politico
, five years?

MH:
Four years, three and a half years.

HH: Okay, so almost her entire tenure at State, and I’ve been on the air since 2000. And I can’t think of anything, and I’m giving you the floor. If you can come up with anything for her case, lay it out there. Just from the top of mine, it should be front shelf, right?

MH:
It certainly is not, there is not a giant list that I think people can point to.

HH: There is no list.

MH:
There are a couple. And I think there’s a couple of reasons for that like I said. With the major issue of dealing with Israel, she was not front and center. And she certainly received criticism early on in terms of how the US dealt with Russia. I think these are all going to be issues that she is going to have to address, and I suspect she is going to get asked about them repeatedly, and by many, many outlets.

HH: I mean, it’s just a big, we’re done, but go around the bullpen at
Politico
and ask them what did she do, and it’s going to be a giant whiteboard, and there’s not going to be anything on it, Maggie.

MH:
I like the invocation of whiteboard, though.

HH: It is a whiteboard. Maggie Haberman, great piece today, great process piece. But boy, she’s got problems if after writing it, you don’t have the list at the tip of the tongue. The Clintonistas had better come up with a list, because there’s nothing on it. Really, nothing.

PART V

CONCLUSION

CHAPTER 44

The Fear Factor

“Upon this a question arises: whether it is better to be loved or feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with.”

This is the most famous “conclusion” in all of Machiavelli’s old book. It was controversial when it was first written, and is now, 500 years later. This conclusion is still true, at least for rulers and even statesmen.

Indeed, if you are not feared you cannot be loved. But you are hardly interested in that love in any event, except from Chelsea and all of her children, and, of course, Bill. I would not write that you don’t care about love. You just don’t allow it to interfere with your plans, except for Chelsea and Bill—and there your plans and their love do not conflict.

The fact is that the country is in real peril, and would be no matter if you had a stroke and were disabled or died today or were elected tomorrow. Our enemies—emphasis on “our”—are numerous and many are fanatics. Some may believe as a result of their theology that war and even holocaust are very good things, earnestly to be sought after regardless of the cost. Some may wrongly conclude that President Obama’s deep weakness is not unique, but endemic throughout America, and especially among its leadership elite, and that his fecklessness is a foreshadowing of an accelerating trend not merely an exception to the rule of American strength and purpose.