THE DAILY BLADE: Is Hillary Clinton Campaigning For President?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s approval ratings have an inverse relationship to President Barack Hussein Obama’s. The Washington Times cites a recent Gallup poll in which 51 percent of Americans approved of the president's job performance, whereas nearly 70 percent approved of hers. This past week, Clinton - who has no doubt seen such polls - has been subtly using her stature and perceived competence as a yardstick with which to measure Obama.

 

At a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Foreign Operations and Related Programs Subcommittee on Wednesday, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) observed that partisanship has “diminished” and “weakened” Obama: 

 

[E]verybody reads the public opinion polls, he’s not able to project the same kind of stature and power that he did a year ago because we’re – because he’s being hamstrung by the Congress and it has an impact on foreign policy, which we really ought to do everything we can not to have partisanship influence.

 

Clinton agreed that world leaders consider Obama a lame duck:

 

[T]here is certainly a perception that I encounter in representing our country around the world that supports your characterization. People don’t understand the way our system operates, they just don’t get it. … [I]t does color whether the United States is in a position, not just this president, but our country is in a position going forward to demonstrate the kind of unity and strength and effectiveness that I think we have to in this very complex and dangerous world.

 

The next day, before the House Appropriations subcommittee, Clinton compared Iran’s nuclear ambitions to the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 - casting herself in the role of President Kennedy, which had the effect of reprising the “three am phone call” meme of the 2008 primary campaign. Agence France-Presse reports:

 

My reading of what happened with President Kennedy is that it's exactly what he did. It was high-stakes diplomacy. It was pushing hard to get the world community to understand, going to the UN, making a presentation, getting international opinion against the placement of Russian weapons in Cuba, making a deal eventually with the Russians that led to the removal of the weapons. That is the kind of high-stakes diplomacy that I'm engaged in, that other members of this administration are, because we take very seriously the potential threat from Iran.

 

And using former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan as a fig leaf ("I served on the budget committee in the Senate, and … Alan Greenspan came and justified increasing spending and cutting taxes, saying that we didn't really need to pay down the debt - outrageous in my view"), Clinton also said that the federal budget deficit had become a national security issue (“We have to address this deficit and the debt of the United States as a matter of national security not only as a matter of economics. I do not like to be in a position where the United States is a debtor nation to the extent that we are”).

 

According to the Office of Management and Budget the annual deficits during the Bush administration were $157.7 billion (fiscal 2002); $377.5 billion (2003); $412.7 billion (2004); $318.3 billion (2005); $248.1 billion (2006); $162 billion (2007); and $454.8 billion (2008). The deficit for the fiscal year that ended last September soared to a record $1.4 trillion, so when Clinton slammed Greenspan for wanting to increase spending instead of cutting the deficit she really meant Obama.

 

BTW, Reuters notes that “China's portfolio of some $755 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds has become a concern for some U.S. policymakers. They worry that Beijing's creditor status could create leverage to influence U.S. policy.”

Posted by The Stiletto at February 26, 2010
Categories: The Daily Blade
 

What did you think of this article?




Trackbacks
Trackback specific URL for this post
  • No trackbacks exist for this post.
Comments
  • No comments exist for this post.
Leave a comment

Submitted comments are subject to moderation before being displayed.

 Name (required)

 Email (will not be published) (required)

 Website

Your comment is 0 characters limited to 3000 characters.