CLINTON'S DOWNFALL? – AT 9:20 A.M. ET:  Hillary Clinton currently has approval ratings much higher than those of her boss, Barack Obama.   She's up in the seventies, although I would disagree with the laudatory judgments. 

Yes, she has worked very hard.  No one can deny her efforts, although they have often been on behalf of policies that we oppose.  She has worked for her country, but also for herself, building the record for another run at the presidency in 2016.  I have no doubt that Bill Clinton's efforts on behalf of Obama this year are being made primarily to win points for Hillary.  Bill and Barack are not bosom buddies, to put it mildly.

But recent events in Libya are affecting Clinton's legacy.  As secretary of state, she is responsible for our embassies, and she is working for a president who doesn't take responsibility for anything.  Please note that Hillary has essentially disappeared.  But her State Department put out a narrative on the Libya attack yesterday that vigorously conflicts with the one first put out by Obama's White House.  Hillary is clearly putting daylight between herself and the president.  From the Washington Post:

The fatal attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya last month has become a test of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s leadership and a threat to her much-admired legacy as America’s top diplomat just a few months before she plans to step down.

Clinton was among the first Obama administration officials to publicly condemn the attack and mourn the deaths of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. But as the State Department has weathered Republican-led criticism that it misread warning signs before the Sept. 11 attack, Clinton has been far less visible.

Clinton will not appear at a Wednesday oversight hearing on the Libya attack, where House Republicans have said they will question the State Department’s security preparations and the administration’s account of the attack. The State Department will instead send a trusted career diplomat along with three security officials.

Ahead of the hearing, State Department officials provided new details about the attack while asserting that there had been no way to predict or prevent the sustained assault.

“The lethality and the number of armed people is unprecedented. There had been no attack like that anywhere in Libya — Tripoli, Benghazi or elsewhere — in the time we had been there,” said one official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss events still being investigated. “It would be very, very hard to find a precedent for an attack like that in recent diplomatic history.”

But the new details also appeared to confirm that there was no protest or other benign gathering outside the compound gates, as initially described by some in the administration.

COMMENT:  In other words, it wasn't the YouTube video that did it.  To some degree, Hillary's fate may lie in the hands of the Republicans who will write the reports that will be written by the House committees investigating the Libya tragedy.

Hillary's nomination is not a foregone conclusion in 2016.  Indeed, she may decide not to run.  And there are young Democrats coming up, like Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, who may challenge her, arguing that it's time for a new generation of leaders.  Her greatest asset, ironically, is that she's a woman, and there's an understandable feeling within the Democratic Party that it's time for that breakthrough, and that she was denied the nomination, perhaps unfairly, in 2008. 

If Hillary leaves government under a cloud, especially if she leaves as part of a defeated administration, her way will clearly be harder.  We're sure she didn't expect this.

October 10, 2012