Karmic Payback or Hillary’s Revenge? You Decide…

* A Great Post, Bumped Up *

Colleen O’Connor, San Diego News Network, penned a fun article: King Obama v. Queen Clinton — Check or Checkmate? Her thesis is that the patient “Queen” is slowly but surely vanquishing the foes who betrayed her for Obama last year. I have another theory. Political operatives who backed Obama, turning their backs on the more qualified Clinton, are winding up under Obama’s big bus because they were not motivated by his qualifications, but a quest for power and influence they thought they would have in his new “kingdom.” One by one, they are finding out that their loyalty is not reciprocated by the master they chose to serve. As my father used to say “lies have short legs.”

O’Connor’s need to speculate proves two things, Hillary’s actions and career are endlessly fascinating and as in the primary, Obama was far more exciting when contrasted with her. When it was down to Obama and McCain, pundits complained of boredom. This harkens back to John King of CNN saying that reporters did not vet Obama because they were “obsessed with Hillary.” Guess they never heard of multitasking. That very obsession still fuels all manner of speculation about palace intrigue, true or not. O’Connor posits:

The Queen has the greatest maneuverability of all the chess pieces. She can be the most lethal. The King, by contrast, is often barricaded behind a wall of defenders, with little room to escape-save in a bold and risky fashion. The King is dying. Long live the Queen.

Quietly, and under almost everyone’s radar, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been vanquishing her foes, while President Barack Obama has been multiplying his.

Furthermore, she has been paying off her debts, while Obama has been multiplying his (and the country’s) I.O.U.s.

Obama is down in the polls. Clinton is up. He is losing his liberal base and taking heat on health care, the wars, broken promises, gate crashers, the bailouts, and a grand design that leaves his base behind.

As New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote Sunday, “The Obama White House is morphing into the Bush White House with frightening speed. Its transparency is already fogged up.”

No one can say we didn’t warn them. O’Connor recites the litany of failed foes, i.e. Obama backers who have seen their popularity slip, legal troubles ensue, lose lucrative posts and otherwise have an awful time capitalizing on their betrayal of the “Queen.” Let’s not forget the disappearance of Howard Dean and Tom Daschle. She also discusses AG Martha Coakley as another potential victory for Hillary:

If Clinton supporter and Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley wins that will make the ninth score that Clinton has settled. And it will have happened in the state that the Kennedy family once ruled.

And so this prediction came to pass as Martha Coakley won the Dem Primary for Teddy Kennedy’s senate seat. Bill Clinton’s last minute endorsement and his 500,000 robocalls were nice touches. And instead of Caroline Kennedy getting Hillary’s Senate seat … “the Governor of New York appointed Kirstin Gillibrand — a Clinton, not an Obama ally — and it is no secret that the Clintons made it happen.”

Many have tried to write Hillary Clinton’s political obituary. Even after she was appointed Secretary of State, the press pointed to special envoys Holbrooke and Mitchell as signs that Hillary was being “marginalized” not remembering she had campaigned on appointing them herself.

The King’s chess move, thought to be “brilliant,” underestimated the patience of the Queen.

The more likely truth is that these envoys were warming up her seat, functioning as a buffer zone while she was hunkering down, figuring out the terrain and her colleagues, just as she did when she first became the junior senator of New York. The work horse did not feel the need to show off before having accomplished something.

Obama’s lifelong habit of being cautious, voting “present” and splitting everything down the middle, may not get him re-elected.

If as the Clintons might already sense, that Obama is in trouble, his biggest threat remains Clinton.

O’Connor lists the disgraced philanderer John Edwards, Bill Richardson, now in “political purgatory,” John Kerry, coveting the SoS spot and being left in the cold, Chris Dodd, with approval ratings “on life support” “…saddled with financial scandals galore-involving all those marquee companies that all Americans have come to hate-Countrywide Financial, AIG-as well as sweetheart real estate deals, with convicted inside-traders; the very people and firms Dodd was supposed to regulate.”

Joe Biden is a particular under bus dweller, his wife lately mentioning he would have preferred the spot Hillary now occupies.

He is on the losing side of the debate over sending additional troops to Afghanistan. … Unflattering pieces about his gaffes and his “standing in the Administration” have begun to circulate in the liberal press — like in a recent column by Sam Stein of The Huffington Post.

Add to this his less than competent role on overseeing the stimulus package and detailing its success (with exaggerated numbers and made up Congressional Districts) and you see where his “standing” is headed. The latest poll showed Biden’s approval rating lower than Dick Cheney’s in the same period!

But offering political cover and spin is the price Biden paid for pushing a candidate who even he noted was not yet ready for the job. Here is the sweetest payback according to O’Connor:

However, the most stealth-like, damaging, and perhaps satisfactory capture, came from the inelegant dismissal of former Clinton White House counsel, turned Obama-supporter and Clinton basher, Greg Craig.

Craig, who turned on Clinton during the primaries, did so in a rather nasty, but effective email arguing that she failed the test as commander-in-chief, that her claims of involvement in foreign affairs were bogus, and that she “never answered the phone either to make a decision on any pressing national security issue-not at 3 a.m. or at any other time of day.”

Currently, Craig is out of the White House-dismissed in a manner that brought howls, from the liberal activists, and have accelerated the disbelief, doubt, and defections among the Obama “believers”.

As Elizabeth Drew wrote in Politico, the firing was “the shabbiest episode of his presidency.”

Craig did damage Clinton as he was a deeply respected operative in Washington. I cannot imagine Mr. Craig saw that payback coming. Even huge Obama allies were mortified at this episode. But it was his own President who threw him under the bus, not Hillary. O’Connor even mentions Sen. Max Baucus…

Baucus has admitted — after repeatedly denying — that he was intimately involved with his state director, when he nominated her for the position of U.S. Attorney from Montana on “her merits.”

Currently under possible ethics violation for the nomination — not the lying, or the tryst, as both parties were separated at the time — Baucus’ political capital has eroded. He, too, competes with Tiger Woods for late night comedy jibes. Baucus’ year is ending badly.

It is fine to magically attribute these “paybacks” to the “Queen” but these guys are just being themselves – they don’t need anyone to show their true nature. They are doing a fine job all by themselves. The press doesn’t have its Hillary-obsession to buffer these guys from the spotlight any longer. In fact, the press tries everything it can to cover her as little as humanly possible. She has won huge awards and accolades this year, barely any of which have received more than a cursory mention.

On other fronts, it was reported many Norwegians were incensed that President Obama collected his Nobel Prize and snubbed them by not attending certain traditional events including lunch with King Harald of Norway. This is but another example of what happens when you become a notch on the bedpost. King Harald is just one of many on the list. I wonder how happy the Nobel committee is that they offered the prize to Obama now, particularly since his acceptance of the peace prize came hard on the heels of authorizing an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, however late his action was taken.

To top it all off, the members of the press corps are sad that the Obamas have done away with the traditional receiving line at many of the WH parties, so reporters will not be able to greet and pose with the President. Politico reports:

…for the White House to do away with the formal line is no small matter to those who work this beat every day: many guests feel it’s the main reason to attend, no matter who’s in office.

“It’s always been a big deal,” said [Dee Dee] Myers, who served as press secretary to former President Bill Clinton. “It’s exhausting [for the president] but it’s the one time when reporters feel like they’re treated like human beings and not just some guy behind the rope line. It’s the one time they can actually say hello.”

“Under the Bush administration, invites went out before Thanksgiving, reporters said. “I’m wondering if they just don’t have their act together on the social stuff,” one print reporter said…

“This year’s process seems so screwed up. It’s one big horrible mess,” said one veteran White House reporter. “The White House knows who covers the beat and they also know who should be attending. A lot of people have their feelings hurt.”

Hurt feelings? Hardly on top of anyone’s list of concerns, yet the press corps has also been hoist by their own petard, sensing the ingratitude of the White House after these guys functioned as the President’s own personal PR firm lo these many months.

In contrast, however, O’Connor points out that it was a “good year for the queen”, Hillary:

• The last minute save of the Turkish-Armenian accords opening the borders between these two longtime enemies.

• Bill Clinton’s dramatic feel-good rescue of the two female reporters held hostage in North Korea

• Clinton being named No. 4 of the 25 “smartest people” of the decade by the political blog The Daily Beast: “If anyone has a more intellectually rigorous resume for the decade, we have yet to see it.” High praise.

• A flattering article about Clinton in the December issue of Vogue magazine, complete with photos by the legendary Annie Liebowitz.

• Clinton’s approval rating in the high 60-percentile while Obama’s flirts under 50.

• The near “irrelevance” of those special envoys Mitchell and Holbrooke. They have been sidelined or mired in diplomatic quicksand.

• The success in adoption of her preferred Afghan strategy — and in securing NATO troop support over the expected 5,000 offered. (Something Clinton lectured Obama about in a primary debate: never get on the plane unless the deal has already been done.)

I think the crème is rising to the top. But while O’Connor’s article is entertaining, I don’t see vengeance here, unless stepping up and doing one’s job can be seen as vengeful. I suppose one could make an argument that by continuing to work diligently and faithfully, Hillary is “plotting” to show up her boss. I think one of the few adults in the room has better things to do. But I can’t say I’m not enjoying watching the dominoes fall – all those who badmouthed her are now finding themselves on the receiving end of a big dose of their own medicine.

The list is growing.