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Clinton builds loyalist empire
Sarah Baxter
London Times
Sunday, Dec 07, 2008
WHEN Hillary Clinton was offered the job of America’s top diplomat, she made one non-negotiable demand: she must be allowed to take her own team of loyalists with her to the State Department.
A new “Hillaryland”, the word coined for devotees of the first lady in the 1990s, is being assembled for Foggy Bottom, where the State Department is based, in sharp contrast to the bold example set by Barack Obama’s cabinet “team of rivals”, composed of the president-elect’s former competitors and opponents.
Stalwarts such as Maggie Williams, Clinton’s former chief of staff at the White House, who was drafted in to salvage the former first lady’s campaign, and the glamorous Huma Abedin, Clinton’s closest personal assistant, are likely to join the new secretary of state’s kitchen cabinet, while James Steinberg, a top official from husband Bill’s administration, is predicted to become deputy secretary of state. “It is to be expected,” said an Obama adviser. “Hillary likes to be surrounded by people she is comfortable with. But she is not going to be allowed to staff everyone from Team Hillary.”
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Top White House and cabinet appointments are being made faster than in any modern presidential transition in the midst of two wars and a severe economic crisis. But Obama, 47, is determined to put his stamp on the style and substance of his administration.
The freedom of action granted by the president-elect to his cabinet of stars will go only so far. “He wants people in the departments who might know more than he does and can guide him, but the White House will be the centre of the spoke of the wheel. He is going to be the boss,” the adviser said.
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Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state, made the same point emphatically in The Washington Post last week. “I know of no exception to the principle that secretaries of state are influential if and only if they are perceived as extensions of the president. Any other course weakens the president and marginalises the secretary,” he warned.
The veteran diplomat, 85, said he was impressed by the heavyweight national security triumvirate created by Obama. It includes Robert Gates, who is staying on as defence secretary, and General James Jones, the 6ft 5in former Nato commander, as national security adviser, as well as Clinton. “It took courage for the president-elect to choose this constellation and no little inner assurance,” Kissinger wrote.
For some, it is a sign not just of poise and maturity but of well-honed political survival instincts. By choosing big names with independent fiefdoms, Obama is spreading the potential blame around, should his administration falter.
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