Hillary Makes The Smartest Political Move of this Cycle

There has been a lot of back and forth about “Will Barack Obama Throw Hillary under the Bus over Beng­hazi?” or vice-​versa this week .

It was quite a sit­u­a­tion, If Obama threw Hillary under the bus would the Clin­tons work sub­rosa against him? (I main­tain they already have been.) If Hillary threw Obama under the bus would the African-​American com­mu­nity make her pay in 2016, it’s one thing for them to be pissed off at Obama, it’s quite another for some white lady to beat up on him.

What do you do? Well Hillary has threaded the nee­dle in a way that accom­plishes every­thing she needed to thus.

Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton on Mon­day tried to douse a polit­i­cal firestorm around the deadly assault on a U.S. diplo­matic mis­sion in Libya, say­ing she is respon­si­ble for the secu­rity of Amer­i­can diplo­matic outposts.

“I take respon­si­bil­ity” for the pro­tec­tion of U.S. diplo­mats, Clin­ton said dur­ing a visit to Peru. But she said an inves­ti­ga­tion now under way will ulti­mately deter­mine what hap­pened in the attack that left four Amer­i­cans dead.

The moment I heard this I had one thought: This is the move of a polit­i­cal mas­ter. Con­sider what this accomplishes:

Seem­ingly:

It is a states­man like move, going for­ward and not duck­ing respon­si­bil­ity in a way nobody has been will­ing to do.

In Real­ity:

It cov­ers her, by tak­ing respon­si­bil­ity it heads off all kinds of sto­ries that might come up with a theme of find­ing fault. Why should con­gress inves­ti­gate to pin blame when it’s already been accepted?

Seem­ingly:

It sup­ports the pres­i­dent, by tak­ing the blame she shields the first Black pres­i­dent both show­ing her­self a good sol­dier to the party and most impor­tantly to the black community.

In Real­ity:

It under­mines Obama by mak­ing her look strong, and him look weak. He is now forced to make some kind of state­ment sec­ond as a response. It’s the 3 AM phone call with her answer­ing while he goes to Vegas.

Seem­ingly:

It ends press cov­er­age on what the Obama Admin­is­tra­tion should do next, blame assigned move on.

In Real­ity:

It doesn’t end cov­er­age it changes it. What will the pres­i­dent do about this? It puts Obama in a box. Blame is assigned so what is the pun­ish­ment? If Hillary is respon­si­ble does he ask for her res­ig­na­tion, does he fire her? With his elec­toral prospects already sink­ing he dare not do either, and God help him if she resigns on her own. It would be another exam­ple of her act­ing while he is par­a­lyzed. It is the final act of Car­ter­i­za­tion of the president.

Seem­ingly:

It makes her vul­ner­a­ble as every com­men­ta­tor on the right calls for her head in the hope of embar­rass­ing Obama and tak­ing her down a peg.

In Real­ity:

It gets her in good with the base of her party. I can see the fundrais­ing e-​mails now. “She’s taken respon­si­bil­ity and those nasty right wingers are pil­ing on” This will coin money for her. That doesn’t even take into account how the press will react.

Seem­ingly:

It hurts her 2016 elec­tion prospects after all she is respon­si­ble for an attack on the US on the Anniver­sary of ⁹⁄₁₁ no less.

In Real­ity:

Not only does this make her look pres­i­den­tial (Expect com­par­isons to JFK’s Bay of Pigs speech from the MSM) but it neu­tral­izes her pri­mary oppo­nents on the sub­ject, in fact for the sec­ond time in twelve years she will be able to paint her­self as the vic­tim of the irre­spon­si­bil­ity of a man who should have known better.

Seem­ingly:

It hands Pres­i­dent Rom­ney a ready-​made issue in 2016 to use.

In Real­ity:

It puts Rom­ney in a box. Every pres­i­dent has for­eign pol­icy fail­ures and Mitt will have his share. Imag­ine the debate answer: “Pres­i­dent Rom­ney is right. I was sec­re­tary of state dur­ing the Beng­hazi deba­cle and I took full respon­si­bil­ity for it. What I would like to know is when the pres­i­dent will take respon­si­bil­ity for (insert rel­e­vant issue here)”. It will put and keep Mitt on the defen­sive.

The Bot­tom line is for­get­ting all the national secu­rity and moral issues involved. Hillary has done the thing that most helps her in the long run while all the time man­ag­ing to under­mine her foes on both the left and the right in one fell swoop.

That doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing to do, it IS but as usual the right thing is gen­er­ally the smart thing and this was the smartest thing any­one in this admin­is­tra­tion has done in a while.

This story may con­tinue, but in terms of its neg­a­tive impact there will be lit­tle if any on Hillary Clin­ton from this point on.

Sim­ply amazing.

Update: Stacy Smithy gets it:

Why am I not a Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date? Because if I was Mitt, I’d be all: “I’d like to con­grat­u­late the Pres­i­dent on his choice of Sec­re­tary of State. After the bet­ter part of four years, some­body in the Admin­is­tra­tion finally took respon­si­bil­ity the way lead­ers do, on one of those hope­fully rare occa­sions when it involves con­fess­ing a short­com­ing. In this case, one that involved the butch­ery of four Amer­i­cans. Hope­fully this Pres­i­dent isn’t too old to learn some­thing from all this. Bet­ter lead­ers plan so as to min­i­mize these sorts of tragedies. Lesser men play the Casablanca card and locate a usual sus­pects for a round-​up. How is Nakoula doing these days, Mr. President?”

Update 2: On Morn­ing Joe Hillary Clin­ton com­pared to JFK. Think about it, in under 12 hours Hillary goes from: “The per­son respon­si­ble for a dis­as­ter” to JFK say­ing “defeat is an orphan”.

Today is day one of cam­paign 2016.

Update 3: Cap­tain Ed Mor­ris­sey (he will always be Cap­tain Ed to me) NAILS it:

It’s a jaw-​dropping dis­play of a lead­er­ship vac­uum, which Hillary ended up hav­ing to fill her­self. This is exactly what Hillary warned vot­ers about in 2008. The con­trast between her moment of lead­er­ship in this cri­sis and Obama’s lack of lead­er­ship since the very begin­ning of it will not help Obama make the case for another four years of buck-​passing at the top, not even when Obama showed lead­er­ship on the Nicki Minaj-​Mariah Carey feud.

And Stacy McCain spots an over­sight on my part:

@dat­e­chguy­blog In your Hillary item (thanks for link) you credit me, when it was @smitty_​one_​each who did that post.

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) Octo­ber 16, 2012

Cor­rected and noted.