FW:

From:cheryl.mills@gmail.com To: john.podesta@gmail.com CC: williamsbarrett@aol.com Date: 2008-11-20 15:17 Subject: FW:

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.