Subject: Correct The Record Monday November 17, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 14:14:41 -0500
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Monday November 17, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Correct The Record’s Burns Strider
<https://twitter.com/BStrider/status/533828327354929152>* @BStrider: .
@IamMinyon <https://twitter.com/IamMinyon> Minyon Moore's video "Marine
One" rocked the #ClintonCenter10th
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/ClintonCenter10th?src=hash> anniversary. She
beat Big Dog in cards [11/15/14, 10:46 p.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/BStrider/status/533828327354929152>]

*Correct The Record's Burns Strider
<https://twitter.com/BStrider/status/534020858936061953>* @BStrider:
Another highlight of Sat night's #ClintonCenter10th
<https://twitter.com/search?q=%23ClintonCenter10th&src=hash> party:
@HillaryClinton <https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> @billclinton
<https://twitter.com/billclinton> taking the stage.
pic.twitter.com/z7s6mmffhZ <http://t.co/z7s6mmffhZ>

*Headlines:*

*MSNBC: “For Clintons, a last party before the storm”
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/clintons-last-party-the-storm-little-rock>*

"In her first public appearance since the midterm elections, Hillary and
her daughter, Chelsea, discussed empowering women and girls at a panel of
their 'No Ceilings' project. 'You have to look at the past, you have to see
what we’ve done and why we did it and we learned from it in order to think
about what you can do for the next ten years,' the former secretary of
state said of their effort to help women."

*USA Today: “Voices: For the Clintons, the past is not even past”
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/11/17/voices-for-the-clintons-the-past-is-not-even-past/19133511/>*

“Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton these days is more likely to cite the record of
her husband's administration than that of the current one, even though her
tenure as Obama's secretary of State is of more recent vintage.”

*The Columbus Dispatch: “Beatty signs onto ‘Ready for Hillary’ campaign”
<http://www.dispatch.com/content/blogs/the-daily-briefing/2014/11/11-17-2014-beatty-says-shes-ready-for-hillary.html>*

“Rep. Joyce Beatty says she’s ready for Hillary.”

*Yahoo: “Facebook slams the door on political campaigns”
<http://news.yahoo.com/facebook-slams-the-door-on-political-campaigns-212248365.html>*

“When the API and terms-of-service changes become permanent for all apps,
Ready for Hillary — as well as any campaign that has bought its voter
information — won’t be able to keep up to date with its supporters’ most
recent lists of friends, and will learn nothing about the Facebook friends
of new supporters.”

*Washington Post: “O’Malley voices opposition to Keystone pipeline in posts
on Facebook and Twitter”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/omalley-voices-opposition-to-keystone-pipeline-in-posts-on-facebook-and-twitter/2014/11/17/4bc68636-6e7d-11e4-ad12-3734c461eab6_story.html>*

“O’Malley’s posture plays well with environmental groups and positions him
to the left of Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom O’Malley would like face for
the Democratic presidential nomination and who has not taken a position on
pipeline’s construction.”

*The Hill blog: Briefing Room: “O'Malley urges Senate to reject Keystone”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/224356-omalley-urges-senate-to-reject-keystone>*

“O'Malley's opposition could bolster him with green groups and position him
to the left of potential 2016 rival Hillary Clinton.”

*Bloomberg: “Jim Webb Vs. ‘Humanitarian Intervention’ (and the Clock)”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-11-17/jim-webb-vs-humanitarian-intervention-and-the-clock>*

“Webb focused his criticism of the Obama administration's policies on the
2011 Libyan intervention, which happened to be closely identified with the
leadership of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.”

*The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “Walker: I could run in 20 years and be
Clinton's age”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/224378-walker-i-could-run-in-20-years-and-be-clintons-age>*

“Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), a possible 2016 presidential candidate,
raised the subject of Hillary Clinton's age when discussing when he might
run for president.”

*Articles:*

*MSNBC: “For Clintons, a last party before the storm”
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/clintons-last-party-the-storm-little-rock>*

By Alex Seitz-Wald

November 17, 2014, 12:17 p.m. EST

LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS – Purgatory has never seen a better celebration. The
Clinton enterprise may be in limbo between one former president and a
potential future one, but it’s all the more reason for one last hurrah.

The tenth anniversary of Bill Clinton’s presidential library brought
hundreds of people together, from old friends and some entertainment (Kool
and the Gang for the baby boomers, Nick Jonas for the younger set) to a
dash of celebrity (Kevin Spacey) and plenty of lengthy symposia. The soiree
could also be seen as a grand finale, as Bill’s era may soon give way to a
period dominated by his wife, especially if her expected run for the
presidency in 2016 succeeds.

Bill Clinton’s story has largely been written, contained in the millions of
documents locked away in the archives of his presidential library here. But
Hillary’s story is, as her Twitter bio states, “TBD…”

“This weekend we’re concentrating on President Clinton,” said Sheila
Bronfman, an Arkansas Democratic activist who met the Clintons in 1976 and
has been a friend and supporter ever since. “There will be another day and
we’ll look forward to what’s happening” with Hillary Clinton, she said.

Bronfman was a leader of the 200 or so Arkansans who helped save Bill
Clinton’s 1992 presidential candidacy during the New Hampshire primary
after it was rocked by draft dodging allegations. On their own volition,
the “Arkansas Travelers” packed into buses and headed north to go
door-to-door in the brutal New Hampshire winter to vouch for their governor.

“I would still follow him to the ends of the earth,” said Kathy
Roth-Douquet, a former Clinton defense advisor who now runs the veterans
charity Blue Star Families.

The spotlight was meant for the former president, but the looming 2016
presidential election caused the other Clinton to steal the show. “As soon
as the midterm elections were over, the New Hampshire primary began,” said
Terry Shumaker, a New Hampshire native who co-chaired Clinton’s 1992
campaign in the state and later served as an ambassador under the president.

Ready for Hillary, the super PAC trying to draft Hillary Clinton into the
2016 presidential race, had no official presence in Little Rock, though
several of the Clinton alumni who came in from as far away as Los Angeles
and London are involved in the RFH effort. One handed his business card
with the super PAC’s logo sheepishly to a reporter, making it clear he was
not here on that kind of business.

Mostly, the alumni wanted to look back and share old war stories.

There were also reflections of the night Clinton first won the presidency:
When the campaign staff pushed all the tables together in a long row to
celebrate at Doe’s Eat Place, a Clinton favorite that serves up no-frills
three pound steaks. While others were ebullient, Rahm Emanuel, now the
mayor of Chicago, felt vengeful, listing off names of people who had
undermined the campaign and stabbing a steak knife into the table to
punctuate each one. ‘Dead!” he screamed as the brought the knife down each
time.

“It was like the Godfather, really,” Paul Begala, a longtime Clinton
political advisor, recalled Saturday with a chuckle. A waitress at Doe’s
said the former president still comes in at least once a year, though
there’s little for him to eat there now that he’s a near-vegan.

Wes Clark, the former four star general who briefly sought the Democratic
presidential nomination in 2004, recalled first meeting fellow Arkansan
Bill Clinton at a conference at Georgetown when they were in college. “He
was escorted by a young lady on each arm,” Clark said. He’s been loyal to
Clinton ever since.

Late that night at the bar, economics advisor Gene Sperling recounted a
time when the president intervened in his love life, urging him to call
back a staffer with whom a senator had personally set Sperling up on a date.

Other former White House aides groused about how George Stephanopoulos,
Clinton’s former communications director, became what The New York Times
dubbed a “thinking woman’s sex symbol.”

Karen Finney, a former aide to Hillary Clinton in the White House, recalled
a warning given on their first day: “Anyone who leaked [to the press] would
be punished accordingly. It was a little different on the president’s
side,” she said at event hosted by Politico.

At the center of everything was the Clinton family, who looked relaxed
among friends in their former hometown. Usually cloistered off from the
public by barricades and Secret Service, there were no rope lines here.
Bodyguards mostly kept their distance.

On Saturday morning, the Clintons mingled freely in the lobby of the $165
million presidential library building, which also has an apartment on the
top floor for the family’s use when they’re in town.

Begala entered wearing a vintage denim jacket embossed with a giant logo of
the 1992 Clinton/Gore campaign logo on the back. “Begala’s still got his
jacket!” Bill Clinton said upon seeing former political advisor, pointing
it out to his wife. “Oh, I love that one, oh my gosh!” she said.

In her first public appearance since the midterm elections, Hillary and her
daughter, Chelsea, discussed empowering women and girls at a panel of their
“No Ceilings” project. “You have to look at the past, you have to see what
we’ve done and why we did it and we learned from it in order to think about
what you can do for the next ten years,” the former secretary of state said
of their effort to help women.

Three panels of former officials on Friday made for the official retelling
of what had been done at the Clinton White House. And reminiscing continued
each night with the aid of bourbon at the venerable Capitol Hotel, where
Barbra Streisand was staying and Kevin Spacey could be seen sharing photos
of his dog on his iPhone.

Bill Clinton is inescapable in Little Rock, and everyone here seems to have
a story about meeting him as attorney general or governor. Many restaurants
have a picture of him on the walls, and some are even named named after him.

But even so, and with his approval ratings sky high, he could no longer
save his own party in his home state. Democrats lost almost every major
race in the Arkansas this month, despite Clinton’s best efforts.

“We’ve been riding on the back of Bill Clinton for so long, but he hasn’t
been in office here for 23 years,” said Charles Blake, a Democrat from
Little Rock who was just elected to the Arkansas state House. Democrats
have seen their numbers halved in the lower chamber since 2006, dropping
from 72 seats to just 36 after this month’s elections.

On Saturday night, 6,000 people filled into a giant tent set up outside the
library for the final party: A concert featuring Kool and the Gang and Nick
Jonas, among others. The Clinton Foundation had given away thousands of
tickets to locals, especially teenagers eager to see one third of the Jonas
Brothers.

The former first couple sat up front and center among friends and bobbed
their heads to the music.

Outside, John Youngblood sold t-shirts and buttons of Clinton swag,
including several promoting a Hillary Clinton presidential run. He said he
had gotten some negative feedback from the crowd for focusing on 2016, but
that the best-selling button of the night was one that featured a photo of
the first couple as college students, with the labels “42” and “45.” (Bill
was the 42nd president, Hillary would 45).

Finally, after the musical acts concluded, the man everyone came to honor
appeared again to conclude the weekend. “I am the old horse that can run
around the track one more time,” Bill Clinton joked.

Then, standing outside the library he built on the street named after him
and looking out at his people in his home town, the former president draped
his arm around his wife’s neck. “This is a good thing for us to do, but
it’s just the beginning. And the whole idea is for it to go on and on and
on and on,” he said.

*USA Today: “Voices: For the Clintons, the past is not even past”
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/11/17/voices-for-the-clintons-the-past-is-not-even-past/19133511/>*

By Susan Page

November 17, 2014, 11:44 a.m. EST

LITTLE ROCK — As former Virginia governor Gerald Baliles wrapped up a day
of discussion at the Clinton Library about the 42nd president's legacy, he
quoted writer William Faulkner: "The past is never dead," he said. "It's
not even past."

Standing just behind him, former president Bill Clinton nodded and silently
mouthed the second half of the familiar quotation himself.

Over the past few days, the Clinton Presidential Center has celebrated its
10th anniversary and the University of Virginia's Miller Center, which
Baliles heads, has released the first batch of oral history interviews with
veterans of the Clinton administration. The center has conducted similar
oral history projects with officials who worked for presidents Jimmy
Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and, now underway, George W. Bush.

While every presidency carries consequences for those who follow, the past
that is the Clinton White House has the potential to be all too present for
the current president, and, perhaps, the future one.

For President Obama, the parallels between him and Clinton are
unmistakable, although the two men are not particularly close — not as
personally close, interestingly, as Clinton is with the Republican
presidents who bookend his tenure, the elder Bush and the younger one. (In
a teasing exchange on social media last week, George W. Bush referred to
Clinton as his #BrotherFromAnotherMother.)

Obama and Clinton are the only Democrats to be elected twice to the White
House since World War II. Both staked their early presidencies on pushing
health care overhauls (Clinton's flopped, Obama's passed). Both watched
Democratic majorities in the House and Senate give way to solid Republican
control during their tenures, in part as a result of the controversies over
their health care plans.

At a panel discussion I moderated Friday, former domestic-policy adviser
Bruce Reed, former Labor secretary Alexis Herman and political scientist
Andrew Rudalevige of Bowdoin College recalled how Clinton responded to that
changed political landscape. He built relationships with Republicans, even
with the mercurial new House speaker, Newt Gingrich of Georgia, and cut
compromises that often put him at odds with congressional Democrats.

And he got things done, including balancing the federal budget and signing
a major welfare bill.

"If I got re-elected, I didn't want to be a lame duck," Clinton told the
audience Friday. At a weekend event sponsored by Politico, he called "this
whole lame-duck deal" a "mindset" to be avoided. He urged Obama to devise
an aggressive agenda and use the budget process to make deals with
Republicans on issues from immigration to taxes.

"Now that they have both houses, they have a much greater vested interest
in not just being against everything," he said.

So far, Obama doesn't seem to be heeding that advice. Since this month's
midterm elections cost Democrats control of the Senate, Obama has signaled
that he may chose confrontation instead with the GOP by issuing an
executive order on immigration and vetoing a measure authorizing the
Keystone XL pipeline.

For Hillary Rodham Clinton, her role as a powerful policy adviser as well
as first lady in the Clinton White House continues to be fodder for
scrutiny as she moves toward a decision on whether to run for president in
2016. In his oral history interview, former White House chief of staff Leon
Panetta described her role as "chief of staff-in-waiting," not hesitant
about stepping in and speaking up.

The events at the Clinton Library didn't deal with such controversies as
the Monica Lewinsky affair, the president's impeachment and his last-minute
pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, though those were topics in some of
the oral history interviews.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton these days is more likely to cite the record of
her husband's administration than that of the current one, even though her
tenure as Obama's secretary of State is of more recent vintage. In an
interview with USA TODAY in June, she expressed concern about growing
income inequality and said the issue could be effectively addressed.

"I go back and look at what my husband achieved, and it wasn't easy," she
said, saying that on easing poverty and other fronts he built "a better
record than other administrations that pursued other policies."

That is an argument we are likely to hear again.

*The Columbus Dispatch: “Beatty signs onto ‘Ready for Hillary’ campaign”
<http://www.dispatch.com/content/blogs/the-daily-briefing/2014/11/11-17-2014-beatty-says-shes-ready-for-hillary.html>*

By Jessica Wehrman

November 17, 2014, 12:34 pm. EST

Rep. Joyce Beatty says she’s ready for Hillary.

Beatty, a Jefferson Township Democrat just elected to her second term in
Congress, announced in an email to supporters that she supports former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a Democratic contender in 2016.

Beatty has signed onto the “Ready for Hillary” campaign – a super PAC aimed
at generating support for a Clinton presidential bid.

She’s not the first Ohio lawmaker to sign on. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Niles,
signed onto the campaign in November 2013.

Beatty’s support comes during a “Ready for Hillary” “Organizing Bomb,”
aimed at finding 100,000 new grassroots supporters for the campaign. In her
email, Beatty urges others to sign on to support Clinton as well.

“What many people don’t realize is that Hillary had to give up all of her
political organizing activities when she became Secretary of State,” she
writes. “That means it’s up to us to build the foundation Hillary will need
when and if she decides to run for president.”

*Yahoo: “Facebook slams the door on political campaigns”
<http://news.yahoo.com/facebook-slams-the-door-on-political-campaigns-212248365.html>*

By Jon Ward

November 17, 2014

[Subtitle:] An upcoming code change means Obama’s groundbreaking 2012
outreach on the site won’t happen again

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama’s reelection campaign pioneered a pathway for
political campaigns to reach voters through Facebook when it released an
app that helped supporters target their friends with Obama-related material.

But as the 2016 presidential campaign approaches, Facebook is rolling out a
change that will prevent future campaigns from doing this, closing the door
on one of the most sophisticated social targeting efforts ever undertaken.

“It’s a fairly significant shift,” said Teddy Goff, who was Obama’s digital
director in 2012, and oversaw the effort that helped the Obama campaign
gain a Facebook following of 45 million users that year. Goff’s team used
Facebook and other tools to register more than a million voters online and
to raise $690 million online in 2011 and 2012.

“The thing we did that will be most affected — by which I mean rendered
impossible — by the changes they're making is the targeted sharing tool,”
Goff said.

More than 1 million Obama supporters in 2012 installed the campaign’s
Facebook app. These supporters were given the option to share their friend
list with the Obama campaign. Goff said most of the app users did so. And
when they did, Goff’s team would then “run those friend lists up against
the voter file, and make targeted suggestions as to who [supporters] should
be sharing stuff with.”

This was a powerful new form of voter outreach. The Obama campaign had
concluded that many voters — especially younger Americans — viewed TV and
other forms of advertising from the campaign with suspicion and skepticism.
But they were still open to messages that came from friends and
acquaintances.

The key to getting persuasive messages in front of persuadable voters going
forward, the campaign decided, was to have them come from people they knew.

“It's extremely powerful for a campaign to be able to say to [a user],
‘Hey, here are your persuadable friends, ranked in order of where they
live: Ohio first, Virginia second, et cetera. Go share this video directly
with them,'” Goff said.

The Romney campaign also started doing this, but only in October, a month
before the presidential election.

Then in the spring of 2014, Facebook — responding to growing privacy
concerns — cracked down on how much information third-party applications
could gain about those who installed the apps.

“We've heard from people that they're often surprised when a friend shares
their information with an app,” wrote Facebook engineering manager Jeffrey
Spehar in a blog post. “So we've updated Facebook Login so that each person
decides what information they want to share about themselves, including
their friend list.”

Today, when Facebook users choose to share their friend list with an app,
only those friends who also use the app become visible, Facebook
spokeswoman Tera Randall told Yahoo News.

The changes went into effect for new apps on April 30, and existing apps
were given a year before the change applied to them. (In technical terms,
what Facebook is doing is changing its Graph application programming
interface, or API, as well as the terms of service for app developers.)

What this means in practice is that a group like Ready for Hillary, the
grass-roots network of supporters for a Clinton presidential run, has been
able to use targeted sharing over the past year. That means it has the
Facebook friend lists of all the people who’ve installed Ready for
Hillary’s app on the social network.

But when the API and terms-of-service changes become permanent for all
apps, Ready for Hillary — as well as any campaign that has bought its voter
information — won’t be able to keep up to date with its supporters’ most
recent lists of friends, and will learn nothing about the Facebook friends
of new supporters. Facebook’s change becomes permanent on April 30, 2015.

Most of the Republican presidential hopefuls, meanwhile, will not get the
chance to use the tool at all.

Aside from a brief article over the summer in Campaigns & Elections, the
political press has not taken notice of the change.

Already, though, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has decided
not to put time and resources into using Facebook’s targeted sharing tools.

“We could have continued to use it just for this cycle, and it could have
been useful to some degree, but for me it was a question of resource
prioritization,” said a senior NRSC official. “I wanted to focus on getting
the fundamentals right first, then building up the chain of sophistication.”

The NRSC official said that when the committee did use targeted sharing in
the Massachusetts special election in June 2013, it showed results, but “we
just didn't see the engagement numbers we needed to see to indicate that it
was going to be transformative this [past] cycle.”

“Plus, the API and News Feed changes have been so frequent over the past
several years that we somewhat doubted the assurances that it would still
work on [Election Day],” the NRSC official said. “Even if so, anything we
built would have to be scrapped after the cycle; it couldn't serve as the
foundation for future cycles, like email list development.”

But the quest to reach voters through their friends will continue to be a
highly competitive space in politics.

“I’m not convinced there aren’t going to be ways [to work around the
Facebook change]. But nobody has found a way yet,” Goff said.

Stu Trevelyan, CEO of NGP VAN, the top software tool for Democratic
campaigns, said that there are still ways to “track relationships in
non-Facebook ways.”

NGP VAN’s interface, which taps into voter databases, is used by virtually
every Democratic campaign up and down the ballot. So the level of volunteer
use around the country is high. And NGP VAN has also created an Action
Center tool that has been mapping relationship data among Democratic
volunteers and Ready for Hillary supporters.

“[Ready for Hillary] said, ‘Hey supporters, go to the Action Center and
share with your friends that they should come and sign up for a free Ready
for Hillary bumper sticker,'” Trevelyan said. “Let’s say I clicked on your
link and went and asked for a bumper sticker. My record would show in the
VAN database that I was recruited by you and you recruited me. There’s a
whole level of observed activity.”

“There is an element of our tool currently that uses that Facebook API, but
it’s not the only way or even the predominant way that we are mapping
relationships,” Trevelyan said.

But as the NRSC official put it, “It seems that the days of getting 1
million users to scrape all of America's social data are gone.”

*Washington Post: “O’Malley voices opposition to Keystone pipeline in posts
on Facebook and Twitter”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/omalley-voices-opposition-to-keystone-pipeline-in-posts-on-facebook-and-twitter/2014/11/17/4bc68636-6e7d-11e4-ad12-3734c461eab6_story.html>*

By John Wagner

November 17, 2014, 12:42 p.m. EST

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) took to social media on Monday to urge
the U.S. Senate to reject the Keystone XL oil pipeline, saying the country
needs to look beyond “smallball choices facing us on energy.”

O’Malley, who is weighing a 2016 White House bid, wrote on Facebook that
the pipeline would produce “too much carbon dioxide and not nearly enough
jobs” and should be rejected. He also expressed his opposition on Twitter.

The Republican-led House voted last week 252-to-161 to move forward with
the project, while a planned Senate vote on Tuesday is expected to be very
close. President Obama could also veto the measure.

O’Malley’s posture plays well with environmental groups and positions him
to the left of Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom O’Malley would like face for
the Democratic presidential nomination and who has not taken a position on
pipeline’s construction.

Environmental groups have argued that the pipeline, which would stretch
from Canada’s oil sands to the Texas Gulf Coast, would adversely affect
climate change.

“We need a jobs agenda that meets our climate challenge — we need solutions
that simultaneously reduce carbon emissions and create jobs,” O’Malley
wrote on Facebook. “With a bold focus on renewable energy, we can solve the
climate challenge, unleash America’s innovative spirit, and re-invigorate
American economic dynamism.”

*The Hill blog: Briefing Room: “O'Malley urges Senate to reject Keystone”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/224356-omalley-urges-senate-to-reject-keystone>*

By Peter Sullivan

November 17, 2014, 10:31 a.m. EST

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), a possible 2016 presidential candidate,
urged the Senate to reject the Keystone pipeline, tweeting his opposition on
Monday.

*Gov. Martin O’Malley* @GovernorOMalley: We need a jobs agenda that meets
our climate challenge. I hope the Senate rejects #KeystoneXL: it's too much
CO2, & not nearly enough jobs. [11/17/14, 10:02 a.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/GovernorOMalley/status/534360894877499392>]

O'Malley's opposition could bolster him with green groups and position him
to the left of potential 2016 rival Hillary Clinton.

Clinton has declined to take a position on the Keystone pipeline. In June,
she cited her tenure as secretary of State, when she had oversight over the
approval process for the pipeline, as the reason why she "can't really
comment at great length."

Environmental groups are strongly opposed to the pipeline, citing its
effect on climate change.

The Senate is set to vote on a bill approving the pipeline on Tuesday, and
it is expected to be close. The House last week also passed a bill
approving the project. A Keystone bill though would still have to get past
a potential veto from President Obama.

Obama indicated at a press conference on Sunday that he intends to let the
administration's approval process continue, rather than have his hand
forced by the bill out of Congress.

"We’re going to let the process play itself out," Obama said. "And the
determination will be made in the first instance by the Secretary of State.

"But I won’t hide my opinion about this, which is that one major
determinant of whether we should approve a pipeline shipping Canadian oil
to world markets, not to the United States, is does it contribute to the
greenhouse gases that are causing climate change," he added.

*Bloomberg: “Jim Webb Vs. ‘Humanitarian Intervention’ (and the Clock)”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-11-17/jim-webb-vs-humanitarian-intervention-and-the-clock>*

By David Weigel

November 17, 2014, 1:11 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] The dark-horse candidate takes on the administration and the
Clinton record, as few watch.

If the advantage of being a front-runner is getting the rest of the world
to adapt to your time, the curse of the dark horse is living by other
peoples' stopped clocks. On Monday morning, after a weekend that saw a
substantial press corps descend on Arkansas to cover the Clinton family's
2016 plans, former Virginia Senator Jim Webb found himself in a Hyatt
basement ballroom, waiting to address a Washington meeting of Economists
for Peace and Security. And waiting. And waiting.

Webb, who has not ruled out a 2016 presidential campaign, was scheduled to
speak at 11:30. At that time, as a panel on trade and jobs dragged on, Webb
was sitting in a corner, his London Fog topcoat bundled on the same table
as a rapidly depleting coffee carafe. The panel dragged on as people
recognized him, bent over and handed him their business cards.

Webb didn't get to take the stage until 11:55. "I was told to be here by
11:15," he said, pre-apologizing for truncating his speech. Over 15
minutes, he boiled down the argument he's been making in Washington and in
Iowa, about an America that had "fallen into that Pandora's box of the
killer of empires" by over-committing and occupying in the Middle East and
Arab world.

Webb focused his criticism of the Obama administration's policies on the
2011 Libyan intervention, which happened to be closely identified with the
leadership of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "It was not a civil
war," he said. "The logic that we used to go in was different than any
situation that I can remember in terms of the use of force. There were no
treaties at risk, there were no Americans at risk, there were no terrorist
attacks coming out of Libya ... in the name of what was called
'humanitarian intervention'–this was the new concept that was enunciated–we
established a new concept that the president can unilaterally decide what
humanitarian conditions are, anywhere in the world."

When Webb wrapped, his fellow former Republican, Michael Lind, asked him
about the difficulty of explaining actual policy and strategy choices to
the average voter. "It's very difficult for any administration to engage
with Iran without being criticized," said Webb, by way of an example. "I'm
not saying we should completely trust them, but I'm certain we should be
having that discussion."

Why did Webb's old colleagues in the Senate fail to discuss these matters
sensibly? "It's very difficult for many people who've been elected for
reasons other than foreign policy reasons to go through this kind of a
drill," he said. "You need clear talking-point kind of advice for them, so
they don't go out and make a mistake in public ... they defer to the
administration so they don't have to enter into very complex debates."

The only quasi-praise Webb had for the Obama administration came when he
discussed its plans, punted after the election, to ask Congress to
authorize continued action against the Islamic State. "It's a very smart
move, finally, for the president to say he wants a vote of Congress to say
what we're going to do with ISIS," he said. In a short conversation after
the speech, Webb declined to dictate what Congress should ask for.

"The administration should come forward, to the Congress, with the
rationale for continuing to do so," he said.

I asked Webb what he'd made of the confused presentations that the Defense
Department made the previous week, and the confused response of Congress.

"Presidents need to lead!" said Webb. He punctuated that line with a loud,
sharp laugh.

*The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “Walker: I could run in 20 years and be
Clinton's age”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/224378-walker-i-could-run-in-20-years-and-be-clintons-age>*

By Peter Sullivan

November 17, 2014, 12:37 p.m. EST

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), a possible 2016 presidential candidate,
raised the subject of Hillary Clinton's age when discussing when he might
run for president.

"Whether it’s two years, six years, 20 years from now, because at 47, I
mean I think about Hillary Clinton, I could run 20 years from now for
president and still be about the same age as the former secretary of State
is right now," Walker said in an interview with the local Fox affiliate
published Sunday night.

The comments about Clinton, who is 67, came as Walker was discussing the
toll of being president.

“I say this only half-jokingly, that you have to be crazy to want to be
president," Walker said. "Anyone who’s seen the pictures of this president
or any of the former presidents can see the before and after, no matter how
fit, no matter how young they are, they age pretty rapidly when you look at
their hair and everything else involved with it."

Walker said last week that Clinton was the "biggest loser" in the midterms
and that she embodies an "old, tired top-down approach from the government."

A range of possible Republican presidential candidates could use the
strategy of portraying themselves as a new alternative in contrast to
Clinton.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, for example, previously told The New York
Times that Democrats have "old, tired ideas being produced by old, tired
candidates."

Walker is coming off of a high-profile reelection victory over Democratic
challenger Mary Burke. He has stoked presidential speculation by saying
governors would make better presidents and telling NBC: "Not only do I care
about this great state, I care about this country."

He was noncommittal in the local Fox interview, though, saying he thinks
someone should run if "they feel called to."

“Right now, I still feel called to be governor of the state of Wisconsin,"
he said. "And I’m going to do the best job I can over the next four years.”