Desperately Seeking Hillary
by Jeffrey Steinberg
Dec. 6—Several prominent Democratic Party-linked voices have weighed in publicly over recent weeks on the insanity of President Obama, and the need to remove him from office. Behind at least some of the long-overdue anti-Obama chatter is a move to oust him from office and replace him with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
On Sunday, Nov. 20, Chris Matthews, one of the earliest and most obnoxious of the Obama groupies, made a public break with the President, during an MSNBC interview with Alex Witt. The Matthews interview immediately went out widely on the Internet.
Matthews went into a state of manic frenzy, going after Obama for failing to give any idea of what he is doing or why he should be given a second term as President. "What is he going to do in his second term? More of this? Is this as good as it gets?" Matthews really went bonkers against the President and his advisors, whom he called "little kids with propellers on their heads. They're all virtual." Matthews assailed Obama for cutting off all contact with fellow Democrats in the Congress, in the governors' mansions, etc. "I hear stories you will not believe," he lamented.
A more devastating, albeit subdued, break with Obama was announced in the pages of the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 21, in a half-page article by Democratic Party pollsters Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen, headlined "The Hillary Moment." They began,
"When Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson accepted the reality that they could not effectively govern the nation if they sought re-election to the White House, both men took the moral high ground and decided against running for a new term as President. President Barack Obama is facing a similar reality—and he must reach the same conclusion. He should abandon his candidacy for re-election in favor of a clear alternative, one capable not only of saving the Democratic Party, but more important, of governing effectively and in a way that preserves the most important of the President's accomplishments. He should step aside for the one candidate who would become, by acclamation, the nominee of the Democratic Party: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton."
The authors describe Clinton as "an obvious potential successor ... who is the only leader capable of uniting the country around a bipartisan economic and foreign policy."
The authors went on to show that Obama is a loser in all the recent polls, and that his only chance to win reelection would be through a brutal partisan assault on the GOP nominee, which would make it impossible afterwards to govern. Clinton, in contrast, defeats all of the current GOP candidates by landslide majorities.
Caddell and Schoen ended the article: "If President Obama is not willing to seize the moral high ground and step aside, then the two Democratic leaders in Congress, Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, must urge the President not to seek re-election, for the good of the party and most of all for the good of the country. And they must present the only clear alternative—Hillary Clinton."
On to New Hampshire
Following the publication of the Wall Street Journal piece, Caddell appeared on a number of radio shows, where he took the "Dump Obama" campaign one step further. He called for a wealthy patriotic Democrat to purchase billboards all over the state of New Hampshire, calling on voters to write in Hillary Clinton's name on the Democratic Party primary election ballot Jan. 10, 2012. Caddell forecast that Clinton would get 25-30% of the vote and that this would thoroughly shake up the elections.
EIR has confirmed that this Caddell-Schoen initiative is absolutely not coming from the Clinton political camp. Indeed, the group of powerful Democratic Party elders and donors who are pushing the "Dump Obama" effort approached Secretary Clinton months ago—and were rebuffed.
Next, they put together a list of prospective Democrats who could challenge the President in the primaries, in a replay of the 1968 Eugene McCarthy challenge to incumbent President Lyndon Johnson. That year, McCarthy campaigned in New Hampshire against LBJ on the basis that the failures of the Vietnam War were destroying the United States, and that Johnson had to be defeated in order to bring the troops home. In a stunning electoral upset, McCarthy got 43% of the New Hampshire Democratic primary vote, to the President's 49%. Soon after the vote, a delegation of leading Democrats went to LBJ and convinced him to announce he was dropping his reelection campaign.
The McCarthy campaign was a stalking horse for Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, who entered the race for the Democratic nomination within weeks of the stunning New Hampshire vote.
The backers of Caddell and Schoen, according to EIR's sources, concluded that the option of a direct challenge to Obama in the primaries was not viable. At that point, the Caddell and Schoen op-ed and the followup efforts were launched.
What Will Nerobama Do?
One known consequence of the efforts to dump Obama is that the President, who suffers from a severe narcissist disorder, is already bouncing off walls over the attacks on his Presidency. Sources close to the White House report that they are certain that, unlike LBJ and even Truman, Obama has no intention of gracefully stepping aside for the good of the party or the country. And, if Obama were to even consider such an exit, First Lady Michelle Obama would step in and veto any such sign of sanity, according to the sources.
While no immediate action is pending, these same sources confirm that there is quiet talk among some increasingly worried Cabinet members that the President is perhaps mentally unfit to continue to serve. The sources describe a President who is disengaged from all serious policy deliberations, short-tempered, and distracted. When he does make a decision, often his own top Cabinet members and White House advisors are baffled about whom he consulted with, and how the decision was taken. To say that there is deep anxiety over this worsening state of mind, one source confirmed, is an understatement.
Although Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution delegates to the Vice President the authority to act to remove the President if he is deemed physically or mentally unfit to serve, it would take a consensus among leading Cabinet members to actually remove the President.
The mere fact that such talk is taking place, albeit behind closed doors, and well out of earshot of the President or the First Lady, is an indication of just how mad things have gotten at the White House.
It was announced this week that President Obama and the First Family will soon embark on a 17-day Hawaii vacation, and that the President will have no public appearances and no other official business during the entire year-end period. A good place for a secluded retirement, if responsible members of the Cabinet just decide to act.
