Subject: FW:
From: "Cheryl Mills" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:17:45 -0500

John:

I am sending this to her - Philippe just sent it.

See contents and points re:  her.

cdm

  _____  

ON THE WHITE HOUSE

Clinton Decision Holding Up Other Obama Choices

Just under a week after news broke that President-elect
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/i
ndex.html?inline=nyt-per> Barack Obama met with Senator
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/hillary_rodham
_clinton/index.html?inline=nyt-per> Hillary Rodham Clintonto discuss naming
her the Secretary of State, Mr. Obama's aides announced that the job of
White House counsel was going to
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/gregory_b_crai
g/index.html?inline=nyt-per> Gregory B. Craig, Mr. Obama's longtime foreign
policy adviser.

Now, wasn't Mr. Craig supposed to be getting one of the foreign policy jobs,
like deputy secretary of state or national security adviser? After all, he's
been meeting with officials in the various embassies in Washington for
months, getting advice on how a President Obama might handle everything from
Iran's nuclear ambitions to Middle East peace negotiations to the worsening
situation on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The official word out of the Obama camp was that Mr. Craig, who represented
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/bill_clinton/i
ndex.html?inline=nyt-per> Bill Clintonduring the House impeachment trial,
was always viewed as a natural for White House counsel, a job that would
take advantage of his years as a Washington powerhouse lawyer.

But several Obama advisers acknowledged privately that Mr. Craig couldn't
take a foreign policy job if Mrs. Clinton ended up at State - too much
animosity and bad history there.

In fact, all of the foreign policy jobs in the administration have been held
up because of the uncertainty over the appointment of Mrs. Clinton. Once
that's cleared up, Democratic aides said, the rest of the national security
team will follow.

Meanwhile Mr. Craig, a close and trusted Obama adviser on foreign policy
during the campaign, exited the sausage-making apparatus, and has ended up
in what many believe is a much better place. As White House counsel he can
roam the world of both foreign and domestic policy, engaging in everything
from handling Guantanamo and torture to digging up skeletons from the Bush
administration. "Everyone thinks it's a consolation prize," a senior
Democratic adviser said. "In the protocol list it outranks national security
adviser."

Speaking of which: If Mrs. Clinton does not end up at State, then Jim
Steinberg, the former deputy national security adviser in the Clinton
administration, is at the top of the list for the national security adviser
job. Mr. Steinberg could even get the job if Mrs. Clinton takes Secretary of
State, Democratic aides say, although some consideration might be given to
whether Mr. Steinberg has the heft to keep Mrs. Clinton's outsized
personality in check.

<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/susan_e_rice/i
ndex.html?inline=nyt-per> Susan Rice, one of the earliest foreign policy
advisers to sign on with Mr. Obama, also gets a new lease on life if Mrs.
Clinton is out of the running for Secretary of State. Like Mr. Craig, Ms.
Rice worked for the Clinton administration, handling Africa policy during
the 1990s.

But the two of them formed a tag team to debunk Mrs. Clinton's claim to
foreign policy experience during the campaign.

When 11,000 pages of Mrs. Clinton's public schedule as first lady were
released back in March, Mr. Craig said they showed that Mrs. Clinton was out
of the loop when critical foreign policy decisions were made and that her
trips abroad were largely ceremonial.

"The fact is, and this was established by the White House schedules, that
she did not attend NSC meetings or routinely meet with the Secretary of
State or the National Security Adviser," said Mr. Craig, who was also a
senior State Department official during the Clinton administration. "She did
not routinely get briefed by the intelligence community, and there is no
evidence that she participated or asserted herself in any of the crises that
took place during the eight years of the Clinton presidency."

Ms. Rice, for her part, questioned the link between being First Lady and
acquiring foreign policy knowledge. No question, it would be tough to put
those three together at the helm of any Obama foreign policy team.

Ms. Rice could get the post of United States ambassador to the
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_
nations/index.html?inline=nyt-org> United Nations, a cabinet-level position
under President Clinton. President Bush downgraded the position when he came
into office, but many expect that Mr. Obama could upgrade the job back to
its old level, particularly if he appoints Ms. Rice.

Of course, if Mrs. Clinton doesn't get the Secretary of State job,
Democratic advisers say a whole host of opportunities open back up for all
of the Obama foreign policy types who got on her bad side during the
primaries.