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Ellison's Must Read of the Day

Ellison must read
August 11, 2014

My must read of the day is "Why Hillary Clinton spoke out on Obama" by Maggie Haberman in Politico:

Hillary Clinton has taken her furthest, most public step away yet from President Barack Obama, rejecting the core of his self-described foreign policy doctrine and describing his decision against backing Syrian rebels early on as a "failure."

She also stood unequivocally with Israel in its current battle with Hamas in a lengthy, detailed interview on foreign policy with the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, which was conducted last week prior to the president’s authorization of airstrikes against Islamist militants in Iraq. The interview was published late Saturday. […]

Political watchers will be tempted to characterize Clinton’s comments as calibrating away from an unpopular president as she looks toward a second presidential campaign. But Clinton has always been more of a hawk than Obama, and she has reached a point where she seems comfortable explaining their differences. Still, while her comments may not have been a specific effort to escape the creeping shadow of global chaos stretching over the White House, they will be viewed that way.

Clinton is "unofficially" feeling out and preparing for a presidential run. She knows she needs to separate herself from the failings of this administration, which is somewhat difficult because she was a part of it. Right now is a pretty good time to start highlighting those differences.

Clinton may have always disagreed with the president on Syria. She may have always been more hawkish than Obama. But it also wasn’t long ago former-Defense Secretary Robert Gates recounted overhearing Clinton concede that she opposed the Iraq surge for political reasons.

I don’t doubt for a second that Clinton supports a more robust foreign policy than this administration—but I also know that Hillary Clinton is politically savvy, and she doesn’t need a polling operation to recognize the unpopularity of this president.

Even if Clinton firmly believes everything she said, it’s politically expedient to take these positions now, when the administration has seen weeks of low polling and failings abroad. That, more than anything, influenced the kind of rhetoric we see in the Atlantic interview. This is not about promoting her book, it’s about politics.