Perhaps they could just call this new organization "No Limits to Ambition".

You know what you get when you choose a team of rivals?

Rivals.

I just hope Hillary Clinton spends half as much time improving US foreign policy as she does sustaining and building her "franchise", smearing her "brand" all over everything, promoting her government in exile, and keeping her options open for 2012.

These folks, although Democrats, won't even say they are eager to work with the new president on his agenda. Do a search on the page for the word "Obama". But I'm sure Ann Lewis will be first in line to stick the knife in Obama's back when the opportunity presents itself.

These Hillraisers remind me of a bunch of sour Confederates, licking their wounds incessantly about the Noble Cause, and plotting their revenge.

What I want to know is why the magazine Foreign Policy is also participating in these electioneering shenanigans. Who do the Clintons own inside the Foreign Policy editorial staff?

This looks like a kind of stimulus, to be funded by private-sector contributions, that will keep political consultants employed until the next election cycle begins in earnest. We don't really want these people trying to assemble wind turbines or upgrade railroad track.

This looks like a kind of stimulus, to be funded by private-sector contributions, that will keep political consultants employed until the next election cycle begins in earnest. We don't really want these people trying to assemble wind turbines or upgrade railroad track.

"I just hope Hillary Clinton spends half as much time improving US foreign policy as she does sustaining and building her "franchise", smearing her "brand" all over everything, promoting her government in exile, and keeping her options open for 2012."

I am surprised that Dan Kervick isn't a charter member of the new organization. After all, the candidate he supported hired every Clinton economic and foreign policy advisor he could find. Steve Clemons has already reported more than once that most of the heavy weights that were with Obama from the beginning got the shaft while most of the heavy weights that were with Clinton got the jobs. Ipso facto, if you like Obama you should love Clinton. But that logic just doesn’t sit well with Obama supporters like Kervick; they just can’t stand Hillary, but they just love the new President who aspires to be exactly like Hillary when it comes to cabinet officials, advisors, policy matters, etc.

Well let me amend that, to be honest, Obama doesn’t want to be exactly like a Clinton; Bill Clinton found room in his administration for both Larry Summers and Joe Stiglitz; Obama has enthroned Summers and basically ignored Stiglitz. And Bill Clinton always understood that in addition to being President, he was head of the Democratic Party. He realized that he was not required to follow Ronald Reagan’s first rule, “never speak ill of a Republican.” Obama seems to think that placating Republicans is more important than forming good policy.

From his articulate posts, we've learned that Dan thinks Obama is starting off poorly on Afghanistan, Iran and the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. We also know Dan doesn't like Obama's position on Gaza or Hamas. And somehow I have a feeling that Obama's choice of Summers, Geithner and all the other Rubin acolytes doesn't sit too well with the Kervick philosophy either.

So why should he be worried about Hillary Clinton's loyalty? He should be glad that Clinton's maintaining her political operation through a surrogate (Ann Lewis). After all by Dan's standards Obama is already a failure. Maybe four years from now or eight, he will be glad to have the opportunity to support the real Clinton (Hillary) instead of the pretend Clinton (Obama).

Thanks a lot for bringing back Public Dilopmacy and Human / Drug Trafficking which includes sexual expliotation, sex tourism .We hope you will have a different approach to include the Hotel and Tourism Industries,Airlines and the African Goverments.

I was your quite supporter and lost two friends for a while.

Please keep up the good work .

Kind Regards
The African Tourism Organization

Very interesting comments WigWag.

Just for the record, I am a fan of Ann Lewis and support the creation of this new group, No Limits. I think that this kind of capacity building is useful -- and helps keep people worked together continuously working on worthwhile efforts.

I hope we see more capacity building like this -- and I intend to be supportive of Ann Lewis on this when I can be.

best, steve

Thanks a lot for bringing back Public Dilopmacy and Human / Drug Trafficking which includes sexual expliotation, sex tourism .We hope you will have a different approach to include the Hotel and Tourism Industries,Airlines and the African Goverments.

I was your quite supporter and lost two friends for a while.

Please keep up the good work .

Kind Regards
The African Tourism Organization

Hew WigWag, how are things over at campaign headquarters?

The reason I worry about Clinton's loyalty is that while I and others are busy trying to harrangue, push, prod and sometimes deride Obama, in an effort to stiffen him up to pursue a bolder and less establishment-driven course, as he sails into massive swirling headwinds coming from many directions *outside* his administration, I wish we also didn't have to worry about potential mutineers *inside* the administration.

There are some days when I am almost seduced by the fantasy that Bill Clinton will get caught with his dick inside some eleven year old Turkmen comfort girl, sent to his bungalow by a customer for of Clintonian influence. That might finally complete the necessary final excision of the Clintons from our national politics. Were it not for my profound concern for the sexual hygiene of Central Asian womanhood, I would wish it so.

You should have fun over at "Madam Secretary". If you can get past the Tiger Beat prose style and fangirl gigglies, they keep you pretty well informed about All Things Hillary. Do you know that Hillary saved the universe yesterday?

One way in which Obama has impressed me in the past is in his ability to learn from experience. So I am mildly reassured that as he screws up, he may learn lessons from the failures, accept personal responsibility, and change his approach. Hillary will more likely cry, stomp her feet, and blame others for stealing her pony.

But Zathras makes a good point. Maybe the best thing to do with the fan club is to give them a make-work job sending emails to each other inside their new foundation.

So glad this group formed to keep the HRC flame
alive and to counter Obama and Organizing for
America. Some one has to do the job.

Well, at least it may keep Ironbelle occupied.

Oops, my post disappeared. Guess I shouldn't have used the "D" word.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/19/hillarys_chos
en_personand_the/

False controversy.

Obama's also rolled out his political organization, and I believe that's taken several forms. So we'll see which organization accesses and channels citizen energy most productively.

No Limits seems like a good idea. I just took at their website . . . and I guess it's still under development.

Consider two points:
1. The more former Clinton officials that have jobs in the Obama administration and are being directed by President Obama -- the less time they'll have to conspire against Obama and the fewer of them there'll be to pursue a divergent agenda.

If you subscribe to the premise, anyway. True that Obama hired Summers & Rubin but not Stiglitz (my early critique), but which programs he'll be directing them to work in the service of, we don't yet know. Obama's got some powerful factions and inexorable forces to contend with, so the better he can co-opt their loyalties and redirect their expertise, the better off we'll all be. Still, Obama's shying away from nationalizing the banks is a very bad sign; the Swedes made it work and as Josh at TPM points out, the semantics don't matter, the substance and confidence does.

2. Obama supporters agree with Hillary 95% of the time (or so we think). I just don’t see the problem. If Hillary goes off-reservation, there'll be hell to pay.

All these musings boil down to one thing: Do I trust Barack Obama's judgment? Does he have the savvy, strength and tactical skills to move the policies and legislation forward necessary to implement his agenda?

The answer is Yes. For that reason and seen in this context, wigwag's off-base in attempting to beat down Obama voters and instill the feeling that they've betrayed.

I'm not surprised in the slightest at what Obama's said or how he's said it, or even who he's chosen and how he's going about approaching specific problems. Nor should any modestly aware veteran student of Presidential power and politics be agog or unsettled or disappointed. You just don't condemn Israel while you're still President-Elect, not while they're in the middle of the Gaza debacle. Wouldn't be 'Presidential' and could easily result in more carnage. Despite specific mistakes -- the insular economic team is a problem (Steve's latest post comes to the same conclusion many here at TWN immediately identified) -- but overall Obama's doing a great job. And Hillary supporters know it--isn't he signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act?

Great link, anonymous.

I haven't been harping on the AIPAC thing, and I'm not gonna parse the statement or research the context, but if Ann Lewis can say

“The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel.“

.. then she's tone-deaf.

"statement made by ... Ann Lewis, at a conference of the United Jewish Communities young leadership, [in mid-March] in Washington D.C."

--post at TPM by Daniel Levy
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/19/hillarys_chosen_personand_the/