Note from the gal who sent me this: I have no idea what to say as a prelude to these videos...I'm struck speechless. For mature audiences only. (seriously, brace yourselves...) Oddly enough, there is a large gap in the video series. It jumps from part 3 to 7, I am trying to find the missing videos, but will go ahead and post what I HAVE found thus far:
Video – The Clinton Chronicles Part I
Part II - Video
Part III - Video
Part VII - Video
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 - by Liz Peek, financial columnist.
Posted: Daily Thought Pad
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: Daily Thought Pad
