Subject: Correct The Record Wednesday July 23, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 14:33:55 -0400
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

**

*Correct The Record Wednesday July 23, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Sec. Hillary Rodham Clinton* @HillaryClinton: On my way to Oakland and
excited to announce a new @2smalltofail campaign there. #LetsTalkOakland
[7/23/14, 12:52 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/491989336250798080>]

*Pres. Bill Clinton* @billclinton: Happy retirement to my friend and
tireless advocate for peace Shimon Peres. Thank you for your leadership and
service. [7/23/14, 5:39 a.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/billclinton/status/491880303837732864>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton ‘committed’ to
helping Democrats in 2014
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/clinton-committed-helping-democrats-2014?cid=sm_m_main_1_20140723_28283206
…
<http://t.co/LXYqOZCWac> via @aseitzwald [7/23/14, 10:07 a.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/491947768878227458>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: pic.twitter.com/q3hcoLi0Wa
<http://t.co/q3hcoLi0Wa> [7/22/14, 4:55 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/491688101547610112>]

*Headlines:*

*Media Matters for America: “The Summer Of Nonsense: 2014 Features Glut Of
Shady Anti-Clinton Books”
<http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/07/23/the-summer-of-nonsense-2014-features-glut-of-sh/200177>*

“Three recent or upcoming books highlight the way an anti-Clinton cottage
industry is trying to manipulate media vulnerabilities to smear Hillary and
Bill Clinton.”

*Politico: “Aide: Clintons, Nelson Mandela connected”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/nelson-mandela-bill-clinton-hillary-clinton-good-morning-mr-mandela-109273.html>*

“Nelson Mandela’s relationship with the Clinton family reflected a genuine
friendship, stemming from their personalities and the Clintons’ intellect,
according to a new insider account.”

*CNN: Melissa Hillebrenner: “Time to stand with girls demanding change”
<http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2014/07/23/time-to-stand-with-girls-demanding-change/>*

“Programs like Data2X, launched by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
in 2012, are leading a gender data revolution...”

*Yahoo News: “Ready for Warren? Well, even if you are, the Democratic
senator says she’s not”
<http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-players-abc-news/ready-for-warren---well--even-if-you-are--the-democratic-senator-says-she-s-not-220926179.html>*

“As for her admirers calling for her to get in the race, Warren is keeping
her distance. ‘I do not support this,’ she said.”

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “Elizabeth Warren could end the
presidential speculation today. She has chosen not to.”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/07/23/elizabeth-warren-could-end-the-presidential-speculation-today-she-has-chosen-not-to/>*

“But politicians use certain words for a reason, and the fact that Warren
won't venture beyond the present tense isn't a coincidence.”

*The Atlantic: “Marco Rubio vs. Hillary Clinton: Can They Both Lose?”
<http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/marco-rubio-vs-hillary-clinton-can-they-both-lose/374883/>*

“Choosing between these two in a general election would be a no-win
situation. The most compelling argument for each of their candidacies is
the inchoate notion many partisan Republicans and Democrats have that
they'd be electable.”

*U.S. News & World Report blog: The Run 2016: “That Time Obama Took Hillary
to the Woodshed”
<http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2014/07/23/hard-choices-hillary-clinton-gets-taken-to-the-woodshed-by-obama>*

“When Clinton dispatched retired diplomat Frank Wisner to Cairo to try to
get Mubarak to step down gradually, his public comments ‘distressed the
White House,’ Clinton claimed.”

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: "Hillary Clinton, the McDonald’s candidate"
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/07/23/hillary-clinton-the-mcdonalds-candidate/>*

“At this point, Clinton is the McDonald's of the Democratic field: ahead of
the competition and not willing to make any mistakes.”

*Articles:*

*Media Matters for America: “The Summer Of Nonsense: 2014 Features Glut Of
Shady Anti-Clinton Books”
<http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/07/23/the-summer-of-nonsense-2014-features-glut-of-sh/200177>*

By Matt Gertz

July 23, 2014

Three recent or upcoming books highlight the way an anti-Clinton cottage
industry is trying to manipulate media vulnerabilities to smear Hillary and
Bill Clinton.

This summer will see the publication of Daniel Halper's Clinton Inc.: The
Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine, Edward Klein's Blood Feud: The
Clintons vs. the Obamas, and Ronald Kessler's The First Family Detail:
Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of Presidents. Rush Limbaugh
discussed all three books one after the other on July 22, commenting, "Do
we really want to hand the country over to these people?"

While these books are catnip for Limbaugh and Fox News, all three should
give credible media outlets reason to pause before amplifying their
anecdotes.

*Daniel Halper*

Weekly Standard online editor Daniel Halper is currently making the media
rounds to promote Clinton Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political
Machine, which was published July 22 and seeks to "expose" the inner
workings of the Clintons' "political machine" and their "unquenchable
thirst for wealth and power." He has already appeared for interviews on his
publisher's corporate cousin Fox News (on The Kelly File and Fox & Friends)
to promote the book, which has been deemed the "'must buy' book of the
summer" by conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt and recommended by Karl Rove
as the "next summer read."

Halper's book characterizes the Clintons as "dueling CEOs" whose primary
goal is to make the Clinton "brand" profitable and politically powerful. He
largely focuses on the well-trod period starting with Hillary Clinton's
2000 Senate campaign up to the present, with flashbacks to earlier periods
in the Clintons' lives. Clinton, Inc.'s extended business metaphor barely
holds together what is essentially a series of unrelated anecdotes and
tired conservative tropes (as one critic points out, a right-wing author
describing the Clintons as "calculating" does not make for a
"groundbreaking revelation"). Many of his questionable anecdotes are
provided anonymously -- "out of fear of retribution or attack from ruthless
Clinton aides," according to Halper.

For example, Halper promotes a confusing, poorly-sourced, anonymous account
to accuse former President Clinton of attempted rape. Halper claims he
received exclusive access to never-before-seen documents about the Clintons
collected by unnamed "investigators, attorneys, and other Lewinsky
advisors" in the 1990s. Halper says that one of "the more promising and
detailed nuggets" collected by the Lewinsky team is an allegation that Bill
Clinton attempted to assault an unnamed woman near San Francisco in the
1970s. But the allegation does not come from the woman herself, who Halper
says never pressed charges. It's based on claims from a "friend" of the
woman, who is also unnamed. Halper's third-hand account doesn't explain
when or how the unnamed friend became aware of the allegation, whether they
had ever relayed the story to anyone other than a Lewinsky representative
decades after the alleged crime, or why the Lewinsky team didn't follow up
on the story. Nor does he indicate that he made any effort whatsoever to
follow up on the claim himself -- even to determine whether the woman
exists.

In another instance, Halper seeks to make the case that something happened
to Hillary Clinton other than what her doctors told the public in December
2012 -- that she took a fall as the result of severe dehydration from a
stomach bug, suffered a concussion, and was hospitalized for a blood clot
in the brain, causing her to delay testifying to Congress about the
Benghazi terrorist attacks. First, Halper baselessly posits that Clinton
may have hit her head after falling down drunk. Invoking a "rumor" from
"bloggers and websites" that Clinton drinks heavily, Halper points to "one
well-known Clinton hater" for the claim the injury was the result of
drinking -- citing no names. He then offers a contrary interpretation,
writing that Clinton may have had a stroke but covered it up. He attributes
this, variously, to "a number of reporters," "some on the right," "others,"
"reporters," and "one veteran reporter" -- not one of them named. Amid this
discussion he concedes that "the revelation" may be untrue after all.

*Edward Klein*

Clinton, Inc.'s release comes less than a month after the debut of
discredited author Edward Klein's book Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. the
Obamas, billed as a "stunning exposé of the animosity, jealousy, and
competition between America's two most powerful political couples." Klein
made numerous appearances on Fox News to promote his book, which was also
heavily promoted by The New York Post.

As The Washington Post's Jaime Fuller has noted, a "defining characteristic
of Klein's biographies ... is that the salacious details revealed often
have a tenuous relationship with reality -- as commentators of all
ideological stripes have pointed out time and time again." Indeed, Klein's
previous book on the Clintons, The Truth About Hillary, was widely
condemned, even by Klein's fellow conservatives; it alleged based on an
anonymous source that Chelsea Clinton was conceived during a vacation in
Bermuda where Bill Clinton raped his wife and passed on the "rumor" that
Hillary Clinton may be a lesbian.

While Klein has continued to produce best-selling books, his reputation has
taken a serious hit. CNN's Brian Stelter reported of Blood Feud that "most
of the press has avoided detailing what's in the book because most of the
press doesn't believe a lot of this stuff." Reporters who did examine the
book came away harshly critical. Slate's Dave Weigel described the book as
"Clinton fan fiction" for including "stories that are reported with great
detail that Ed Klein could not have personally seen." BuzzFeed's Katherine
Miller reported that "[a]lmost every chapter has something truly insane in
it" and that the book "reads like stilted fan fiction, featuring dialogue
that no human has likely said or will probably ever say until you read it
aloud to friends and family." Even Rush Limbaugh and Brian Kilmeade
initially raised questions about the book's sourcing (they would later
nonetheless promote the book's claims).

*Ronald Kessler*

In two weeks, Ronald Kessler will release The First Family Detail: Secret
Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents, which reportedly
features attacks on Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Kessler is a conservative journalist who was the chief Washington
correspondent for the right-wing website Newsmax and has been an opponent
of leading Democrats.

Shortly before the 2008 election, Kessler urged Republicans to tie Obama to
Rev. Jeremiah Wright "to illustrate how out of step he is with most of
America ... Wright holds the key to what Obama is all about, demonstrating
his attraction to a left wing, anti-American agenda." Kessler had
previously promoted the falsehood that Obama had been in attendance at the
services when Wright made controversial statements. Kessler has accused
Hillary Clinton of "pathological lying" and pushed the conspiracy theory
that she drove Vince Foster to suicide (he also accused Robert Kennedy of
driving Marilyn Monroe to suicide).

Reviewers of Kessler's books have criticized him for peddling trashy
gossip. National security reporter James Banford wrote in The Washington
Post that for his book In The President's Secret Service, Kessler "milked
the agents for the juiciest gossip he could get and mixed it with a
rambling list of their complaints," comparing the book's reporting to that
of the National Enquirer. New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani called
Kessler's Joseph P. Kennedy book The Sins of the Father a "meanspirited,
speculation-filled biography ... which purveyed a determinedly poisonous
portrait of the man." That book was also described by Globe and Mail's
Andrew Cohen as featuring research that "is sometimes suspect" because
Kessler "relies too heavily on speculation, gossip, innuendo and secondary
sources." Publicity material for Kessler's The Secrets of the FBI, as Bryan
Burrough wrote in the Post, even promised it would be "filled with
revelations about the Bureau and Page Six tidbits."

The media has largely decided not to treat Klein seriously; it remains to
be seen the extent to which they will give more credence to Halper and
Kessler.

*Politico: “Aide: Clintons, Nelson Mandela connected”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/nelson-mandela-bill-clinton-hillary-clinton-good-morning-mr-mandela-109273.html>*

By Sarah Smith

July 23, 2014, 7:27 a.m. EDT

Nelson Mandela’s relationship with the Clinton family reflected a genuine
friendship, stemming from their personalities and the Clintons’ intellect,
according to a new insider account.

“It’s quite noticeable how broad their view was of the world, how informed
they all are — all three of them — about all details of the very small
countries around the world,” Zelda la Grange, the woman who served as
Mandela’s private secretary from 1997 until his death, said in an interview
about her new memoir, “Good Morning, Mr. Mandela.”

La Grange, a white Afrikaner who grew up hearing Mandela called a
“terrorist,” joined Nelson Mandela’s staff as a typist in 1994 and became
his private secretary in 1997, staying with Mandela until his death in
2013. La Grange traveled with him to foreign countries and met everyone
from world leaders to celebrities. This week, the author is touring
different media outlets and venues to promote her book, including hosting a
reading at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington on Thursday.

In her book, la Grange recalled then-president Bill Clinton’s trip to South
Africa during the most trying time of his presidency: at the height of the
Monica Lewinsky scandal. But Mandela, she recalled, still stood by him.

“President Mandela welcomed President Clinton with open arms, admitted the
personal difficulties he was facing with regards to the Lewinsky saga, but
reassured President Clinton that he still respected him and had faith in
his ability to lead,” she wrote. “He had a way to put things in perspective
of one’s humanity.”

La Grange met Bill and Hillary Clinton multiple times, both when traveling
to the United States with Mandela and when the Clintons came to South
Africa. She described Hillary Clinton’s connection to Mandela as “humble”.

“She was always very respectful and very warm - it was a very humble
relationship,” la Grange said. “Mr. Mandela would also inquire about
Chelsea and what Chelsea was studying, what she’s doing with her studies.
It was a very homey kind of relationship.”

While la Grange didn’t get to interact with President Barack Obama in the
same was as the Clintons because Mandela’s health was failing by the time
Obama took office, his speech at Mandela’s funeral has stuck with her.

“In my humble opinion, it was his Martin Luther King speech,” she said of
the speech. “I think the warmth, and the way he articulated the values of
Nelson Mandela and what we aspire to, almost to console the South African
public.”

And as for that infamous selfie — when Obama snapped a picture of himself
with Danish prime minister Helle Thornig-Schmidt and British prime minister
David Cameron, spawning tabloid headlines around the globe - la Grange
shrugged it off.

“I did see it in the news,” she said. “But I think we were so overwhelmed
by emotion, we didn’t really make much of it.”

In a passage timely for today, la Grange’s book chronicles Mandela’s 1999
journey to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders and then back to
Washington to discuss a potential path to peace with then-president Clinton.

Mandela thought a Middle East peace would be achievable under certain
conditions, she said: Israel would be recognized within its borders,
Palestine would have an independent state, and each side would trust the
appointed negotiators to make peace.

“If you look at current events, those conditions that Mr. Mandela put —
they could still pay off in the Middle East, but it’s a very complex
situation,” she said. “The tension is so deep right now that it’s going to
be difficult to get those conditions.”

Many in the current debate over Israel and Palestine hold up apartheid
South Africa as an example of what is - or is not - happening in the
region. La Grange said she sees some parallels but cautioned that they were
too different to draw a direct comparison.

“I hope for the Middle East there’s a leader who will make the right
decisions,” she said. “We had the leadership of Nelson Mandela, and that’s
why we succeeded.:

“Good Morning, Mr. Mandela,” was published on June 24 by The Penguin Group.

*CNN: Melissa Hillebrenner: “Time to stand with girls demanding change”
<http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2014/07/23/time-to-stand-with-girls-demanding-change/>*

By Melissa Hillebrenner, director of the United Nations Foundation’s Girl
Up campaign

July 23, 2014, 11:05 a.m. EDT

Thursday marks 100 days since more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted from
their families and community in northeast Nigeria, a reminder of the
horrors and hardships many girls face when trying to get an education. It’s
difficult for many of us to imagine what it would be like to be taken from
a place that is supposed to be safe. Sadly, this situation is not unique to
Nigeria.

In too many communities around the world, girls are criticized for going to
school or denied their right to education completely. Worldwide, more than
60 million girls of primary and secondary school age are not in school.

I just returned from a trip to Guatemala, where I met Teresa Vivia, an
engaging 16 year-old who lives in the town of Santa Maria Chiquimula.
Vivia’s parents both passed away, and she lives with her sister-in-law. She
wants to go to school, but had to stop going so she could take care of her
nephews and the house.

Lack of access to education is just one barrier facing girls like Teresa
Vivia. According to data that UNICEF released earlier this week, more than
700 million women alive today were married as children. More than 1 in 3 –
or some 250 million – were married before 15. Many have to drop out of
school to manage household chores, are vulnerable to abuse and are often
deprived of the information, tools and services to plan their families.
This has tragic consequences: Girls who have children as children face
higher risks of complications from pregnancy and childbirth. In fact, these
complications are a leading cause of death for adolescent girls in low- and
middle-income countries.

The challenges facing girls are enormous, but there are hopeful signs that
the realities are changing. I’ve met girls from around the world – from a
small village in Guatemala to a refugee camp in Ethiopia to a big city in
the United States – who are speaking out for their rights and for their
sisters. They’re biking miles and miles to get to school, writing letters
to their leaders to change laws, and putting their safety at risk to escape
child marriage.

Such courage has a powerful ripple effect. Research shows that educated and
empowered girls lift up their families, their communities, and their
nations – helping to break the cycle of poverty and improve the health of
societies.

These girls are standing up for change; now is our time to stand with them.

How? For a start it is essential that we make sure education is the right
of all girls, not a privilege for a few. This means creating economic
opportunities and getting rid of discriminatory laws. It means condemning
child marriage and enforcing laws against it. And it means making sure
girls have access to quality health care and addressing their sexual and
reproductive health rights and needs – including family planning.

It also means making sure girls are counted. Millions of girls are never
registered at birth, which can make them invisible members of society. Not
having a birth certificate often prevents a girl from going to school,
seeing a doctor, or getting a job when she's older. The U.S. Congress has
introduced bipartisan legislation, the Girls Count Act, which would support
programs in developing countries to improve birth registration and promote
policies that prevent discrimination against girls. Let’s get this bill
passed.

And we need to go even further: we need to collect more and better data to
give us a more accurate picture of the lives of girls and the struggles
that they face. Right now, we just have a partial snapshot, because we
don’t have a lot of data in many countries and on a global level that is
broken down by age and gender on issues including health, education, and
economic participation. But programs like Data2X, launched by
then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012, are leading a gender data
revolution so we can assess the status of girls and women and make informed
decisions on how best to address their needs.

Ultimately, though, if we’re going to make a real and lasting impact for
girls, we need to change hearts and minds. For too long and in too many
places, girls have been unseen and ignored. Instead of devaluing girls,
let’s empower them. It’s their right and our opportunity to build a better
world.

*Yahoo News: “Ready for Warren? Well, even if you are, the Democratic
senator says she’s not”
<http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-players-abc-news/ready-for-warren---well--even-if-you-are--the-democratic-senator-says-she-s-not-220926179.html>*

By Jeff Zeleny

July 23, 2014

Are you ready for Warren?

That’s the question supporters of Sen. Elizabeth Warren are asking with the
recent formation of a Ready for Warren Super PAC, which is taking a page
from Ready for Hillary in laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign
should the Massachusetts Democrat decide to run in 2016.

Though many of her fans are cheering “Run, Liz, Run,” Warren is putting the
brakes on such enthusiasm.

“I am not running,” Warren told “The Fine Print” when asked if she’s
mulling the idea of a presidential bid. It's the same answer she always
gives -- in the present tense. She doesn't rule out whether she would ever
run.

“I am focused on the 2014 elections,” she said. “We've got an election
coming up … just a few months away -- that’s what we need to work on.”

As for her admirers calling for her to get in the race, Warren is keeping
her distance. “I do not support this,” she said.

To make clear that her focus is on the 2014 midterm elections, Warren has
been crisscrossing the nation in recent months, campaigning on behalf of
Democratic candidates who wish to align themselves with her populist
message calling for economic reforms on behalf of the middle class.

The Massachusetts Democrat has ventured into some deeply conservative
states, including West Virginia and Kentucky. But Warren dismisses the
suggestion that her message fires up only liberals.

“The kinds of economic issues that I'm talking about, it's not Republican
or Democrat,” she said. “People are getting hammered everywhere, and they
care about these central ways that we can rebuild America's middle class:
equal pay for equal work, reduce the interest rate on student loans, raise
the minimum wage. … And I love being in Kentucky to talk about this and to
be in West Virginia, standing up with great candidates like Natalie Tennant
and Alison Lundergan Grimes.“

Though Warren has been an outspoken critic of the way business is done in
Washington – even ways that are critical of her own party – she denies that
her tough talk is causing tensions within the Democratic Party.

"I'll tell you where the tensions are, the tensions are with the
Republicans," Warren said. "We want working people to earn more, we want to
reduce the interest rate on student loans, we want to stitch up the loop
holes that let millionaires and billionaires pay at lower tax rates than
their secretaries; that's the stuff we're working on, and Republicans have
filibustered every single piece of it.”

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “Elizabeth Warren could end the
presidential speculation today. She has chosen not to.”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/07/23/elizabeth-warren-could-end-the-presidential-speculation-today-she-has-chosen-not-to/>*

By Aaron Blake

July 23, 2014, 1:03 p.m. EDT

In a new interview with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), ABC's Jeff Zeleny
does something a journalist should have done a long time ago: press her on
her use of verb tense.

Noting Warren's stock response to whether she will run for president is "I
am not running," Zeleny makes the completely valid point that such a
statement is quite a bit less than Shermanesque.

Here's the video, and here's the exchange:

ZELENY: You've said 'I am not running.' Is that still your answer today?

WARREN: I am not running.

ZELENY: I noticed it's in the present tense, though. 'I am not running.'

WARREN: I'm not running.

ZELENY: Does that mean you've ruled out running, or all you'll say is, 'I
am not running'?

WARREN: I am not running for president.

These are the 434th, 435th and 436th times (rough estimates) Warren has
uttered some variation of this sentence. One thing she has not yet said: "I
will not run for president."

And there's a reason for that.

Warren is, essentially, having her cake and eating it to. She's telling
people she's "not running," and that's undeniably a true statement. But if
she ever decided to run, nobody could accuse her of being a liar. After
all, she was speaking in the present tense. And as of right now, she's not
running.

A list of other people who can credibly say "I am not running" today
includes Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Joe
Biden and Martin O'Malley. None of them are official candidates for
president with campaign committees. None of them are running, as of right
now.

Now, it might sound like we're playing a dumb game of semantics here. And
we understand how tiresome the repeated "will you run" questions are even
for the biggest political junkies.

There's also the fact that many politicians have offered more-Shermanesque,
future-tense denials and still decided to run. These folks include the
incumbent president of the United States.

But politicians use certain words for a reason, and the fact that Warren
won't venture beyond the present tense isn't a coincidence. This is the
response she has given over and over again. It's clearly the message she
has chosen for herself.

That doesn't mean she will eventually run. Perhaps she's just hoping that
we'll continue to write stuff like this so that the talk persists and she
can stay politically relevant.

But we also shouldn't pretend that Elizabeth Warren is totally exasperated
that people keep asking her this question. She could put a stop to it today.

*The Atlantic: “Marco Rubio vs. Hillary Clinton: Can They Both Lose?”
<http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/marco-rubio-vs-hillary-clinton-can-they-both-lose/374883/>*

By Conor Friedersdorf

July 23, 2014, 9:07 a.m. EDT

[Subtitle:] There are good reasons to hope that neither presumptive
presidential candidate emerges as a nominee.

Senator Marco Rubio is less accomplished than Hillary Clinton in virtually
every way. Even if you prefer his agenda, there's no denying that he has
less leadership experience, less foreign-policy experience, a less detailed
grasp of domestic-policy detail, and fewer instances of speaking
intelligently without a teleprompter. Were I charged with capital murder,
and had to hire either Rubio or Clinton to head up my defense team, I'd
hire Clinton. Wouldn't you? Were I improbably on the board of directors of
a corporation that extracted rents by hiring Washington insiders, and
wanted to hire a CEO who'd maximize my morally dubious profits, I would
hire Clinton before Rubio. She'd be more competent.

It's little wonder that in attacking the former secretary of state this
week, Rubio called her "a 20th-century candidate" who "does not offer an
agenda for moving America forward in the 21st century." How could he
juxtapose himself favorably with Clinton except by alluding to her ample
baggage and his relative youth (especially since their foreign-policy views
are more alike than either would like to admit)?

Clinton's response was pablum. "Every election is about the future," she
said. "And certainly anyone who wishes to run for president has to make it
clear how the experience that you've had in the past and what you believe
and how you have acted on those beliefs will translate into positive
results for the American people."

Unfortunately for Clinton, her significant, varied experience—rivaled in
recent elections only by Dick Cheney—doesn't much recommend her for higher
office. If her time as first lady, U.S. senator, and secretary of state are
predictive, a Hillary Clinton administration would include a failed attempt
at passing landmark domestic legislation followed by selling out a minority
group to shore up centrist credibility. (I'm guessing it would be Muslim
Americans instead of gays this time.) Were there a major terrorist attack,
history indicates that Clinton would back a catastrophic war of choice in
an unrelated country; sign legislation that needlessly undermines civil
liberties; and ramp up mass surveillance. Her career is marked by small,
respectable victories and hugely consequential failures.

The Republican Party can do better than Rubio, who would be out of his
depth in the Oval Office. And Democrats can do better than Clinton, whose
votes for Iraq and the Patriot Act, coziness with Wall Street, and slowness
to embrace gay equality illustrate how many hugely significant judgment
calls she has gotten wrong. I could accept a candidate who had learned from
their biggest mistakes over the years. But Clinton is as willing as ever to
intervene abroad even in instances when she herself admits that
nonintervention could well be the correct call.

Choosing between these two in a general election would be a no-win
situation. The most compelling argument for each of their candidacies is
the inchoate notion many partisan Republicans and Democrats have that
they'd be electable.

*U.S. News & World Report blog: The Run 2016: “That Time Obama Took Hillary
to the Woodshed”
<http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2014/07/23/hard-choices-hillary-clinton-gets-taken-to-the-woodshed-by-obama>*

By David Catanese

July 23, 2014, 10:28 a.m. EDT

As the Arab Spring began to unfurl throughout the Middle East, one of the
critical questions was whether the U.S. would publicly stand with the
protesters filling the streets.

In her new book “Hard Choices,” Hillary Clinton makes clear a difference in
approach to the delicate situation between herself and President Barack
Obama.

In Egypt, whereas the White House had settled on saying President Hosni
Mubarak should abdicate power immediately, Clinton was counseling caution,
worried the consequences of a vacuum of leadership.

“In a country like Egypt, with a long history of authoritarian rule, it
would take strong, inclusive leadership and sustained effort from across
society, as well as international support, to put these building blocks of
democracy in place,” Clinton wrote. “No one should expect them to appear
overnight.”

When Clinton dispatched retired diplomat Frank Wisner to Cairo to try to
get Mubarak to step down gradually, his public comments “distressed the
White House,” Clinton claimed.

“Wisner made waves by saying Mubarak shouldn’t go immediately but should
oversee a transition. His comments came across as contradicting the
president and the White House was annoyed that Wisner had overstepped his
brief,” Clinton continued. “The president called me to express his
unhappiness with the ‘mixed messages’ we were sending. That’s a diplomatic
way of saying he took me to the woodshed.”

The next day, Mubarak stepped down, ceding power to the military. The
Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi would ascend as his replacement, but
that wouldn’t quell the unrest or the protests.

And just three pages later, Clinton reminds readers that it was she who
foresaw the chaos and instability that followed.

“Unfortunately the months and years that followed proved that my early
concerns about the difficulties of democratic transitions were
well-founded,” she wrote.

The recollection of this incident not only allows Clinton to distance
herself from the Obama administration’s approach to foreign policy, it
reflects a level of sophisticated nuance she brought to an emerging crisis.

While many were quick to side with the popular protesters, she was thinking
long-term. In this instance, of course, that nuance makes her seem
prescient. That’s why a passage of being “taken to the woodshed” is worth
including.

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: "Hillary Clinton, the McDonald’s candidate"
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/07/23/hillary-clinton-the-mcdonalds-candidate/>*

By Philip Bump

July 23 at 9:27 AM

On Monday night, Hillary Clinton participated in a chat with employees of
Twitter that was streamed on the web. Like her Facebook chat earlier in the
day, the questions Hillary answered were curated for her. But unlike the
Facebook chat, Twitter offered Clinton other assurances.

Of the 11 questions she answered, one came from a "normal" Twitter user.
Four came from Twitter employees; the others were from celebrity women.
There was no press in the room. And she was interviewed by Katie Jacobs
Stanton, a Twitter executive who once worked for Clinton at the State
Department. The event was thoroughly corporate -- as personal, creative and
insightful as a McDonald's ad. No way was Hillary Clinton going to
inadvertently cross whatever invisible line would preclude her from being
elected president.

Which is what, exactly? What is Hillary Clinton trying to do? Over the
course of her reintroduction to America, spurred primarily by the launch of
her book, "Hard Choices," Clinton has given a broad range of interviews,
none of which offered her much of a challenge. Even famed dragon-slayer Jon
Stewart didn't put up much of a fight, meekly reinforcing how much he loved
Clinton's book and doing the are-you-running schtick for 20 minutes.
Perhaps the most difficult interviewer she encountered was NPR's Terry
Gross, who pressed Clinton repeatedly for an answer on gay marriage.

She also stumbled over questions about her family's transition from
Average-Joe White House residents to denizens of the upper crust, but as
the New York Times' Lynn Vavreck noted, those comments gained traction in
part thanks to the vacuum of an actual campaign. "People are not evaluating
her for the party nomination; they are sizing her up as a president,"
Vavreck wrote last week. "They evaluate Mrs. Clinton on what they think
life would be like under her presidency, but she’s actually giving them
very little domestic policy information to go on." So they interpolate from
what information is out there, and Hillary suffers.

There's a weird timidity to it. Clinton has repeatedly made clear that she
is distrustful of the media, as was thoroughly documented by Politico's
Glenn Thrush in May. Thrush's headline encompasses the point: "What Is
Hillary Clinton Afraid Of?" This phase of Clinton's campaign is predicated
on her time as secretary of state, which, in turn, is meant to reinforce
her toughness and preparedness for the job of president.

Clinton's exchange with Gross was revelatory in many ways, not the least of
which was that it seemed like an overreaction. Much has been made of the
fact that her life since Jan. 20, 1993, has existed within bubbles of
various densities -- the White House, the Senate, the State Department,
and, for really only a few months, behind high walls in Chappaqua, N.Y. Or,
more correctly, behind the tinted windows and pressurized portholes of
limos and jets taking her to speaking gigs and to Clinton Global Initiative
gatherings. Whatever tension arose when she was first lady, whatever
disagreements emerged in Foggy Bottom, Clinton's world for the past two
years has been one fueled by pleasantries.

It's a corporate world, both in the sense that those in power are treated
largely with deference and access, and in the sense that institutions take
great pains to keep the waters as still as possible. The analogy of a
McDonald's ad above was intentional. The fast-food giant shoots right for a
large target labelled "common denominator" in its ads, hitting a bullseye
nearly every time. Everything is tested, checked and run past lawyers to
avoid mistakes or misinterpretations that would cost money. This is the
balance we see in Clinton: fear of minutiae while feeling completely
comfortable in a position of authority.

When Clinton agreed to speak at the University at Buffalo last October,
included in the deal was a lengthy rider stipulating that her speech should
include "a presidential glass panel teleprompter and a qualified operator"
and that she have final say over "sets, backdrops, banners, scenery, logos,
settings, etc." Not atypical for a performer. Also not atypical as
components of a complex legal document e-mailed out by the guys on the 22nd
floor. And it had echoes elsewhere.

This is what people attending Clinton's first book signing in New York City
were handed before they got a chance to meet the former senator. Again: Not
uncommon for book signings, or, for that matter, presidential events. But
try and imagine a scenario in which something spontaneous occurs within
these constraints. It would be as tricky as finding an unexpected argument
or defense in "Hard Choices."

Hillary Clinton has 1.2 million followers on Twitter. She tweeted out a
link to the livestream of her chat with the company on Monday afternoon,
her sixth tweet this month. Shortly after it began, BuzzFeed's Ben Smith
noted that only 550 had tuned in; when I joined shortly afterward, it was
at about 750. Everyone missed hearing Clinton respond to Malala about the
importance of female leaders and missed when she demurred from answering
soccer star Julie Foudy's question about who she might choose as her VP.

At this point, Clinton is the McDonald's of the Democratic field: ahead of
the competition and not willing to make any mistakes. But who tunes in to
watch a McDonald's ad?