The Eternal Campaign Season

Yesterday John Podhoretz posted an article at the New York Post about some recent comments by Hillary Clinton. Hillary has made some very interesting comments about President Obama’s foreign policy–an interesting point of attack since she was Secretary of State for much of his tenure.

Mr. Podhoretz writes that he thinks President Obama miscalculated by not choosing Hillary as his Vice-President. If she were Vice-President, she would still be standing with him–not trashing his foreign policy.

The article points out some of the reasons Hillary may be striking out at President Obama:

What’s more, when she was working for you, you refused to give her the reins of US foreign policy and centralized all the power in the White House.

Fair is fair. You took Michael Corleone’s advice: You sought to keep this enemy close. But you didn’t keep her close enough. And now you shall pay. She has made you start paying already.

Hillary Clinton is the most popular politician in America now — more popular than you, if you haven’t noticed. And she has decided, for all intents and purposes, to go into opposition.

That was the meaning of the extraordinary interview she granted Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic over the weekend. It was the annunciation of her separation from you and your legacy.

Though filled with qualifications and words of praise for Obama here and there, the interview is a rare assault against a sitting president by his former secretary of state.

The key sentence is this: “Great nations need organizing principles,” Hillary told Goldberg, “and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”

The article sums up the character of the Clintons:

Mrs. Clinton’s political judgment is not to be trusted. She allowed Obama to eat her lunch in 2008 in part because she was overconfident and tacked too far to the center too early. She may well be doing it again.

But she has made her choice. If Obama stumbles, she’ll be there — with her ankle turned out, to trip him up still further and then, with a sad smile, claim credit for having known that the obstacle had been there in his path all along.

I believe Hillary will again be challenged from the left for the Democrat nomination for President. I believe that challenge will come from Massachusetts’ own Elizabeth Warren. It may be an interesting primary season.