Condi –v- Hillary

Condi –v- Hillary
By Dick Morris

This book is the brainchild in every way of Bill Clinton’s political strategist, Dick Morris. His agenda is clear. Dick Morris takes it for granted in 2005 that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination and the only person within the Republican Party that can stand up to her is Condolezza Rice. He spends time in the book making and remaking the profile for Hillary Clinton. She is a political animal that will pander for votes and say or not say what needs to be said strictly for the purpose of achieving the highest office in the United States of America. Condolezza’s on the other hand was at the time our sitting Secretary of State with a robust agenda, and no time, or desire for the same goal.

Morris’ agenda is to generate a public ground swell to persuade her to take the challenge. Morris missed on both accounts. While Hillary Clinton did leave her post as a New York Senator to pursue the White House and fell short, Condolezza Rice upheld her responsibility as our Secretary of State and did not put her hat in the ring. Morris spent a bit of time creating the political backdrop for the hoped for race. He also spent a bit of time on the strategy that he assumes Clinton would take and then the countermeasures that he would recommend for Rice. To that end Morris is not the political strategist to the first African-American female president and remains an author.

The nuggets I captured however are the comparisons of the two women, the former and current Secretaries of State. These comparisons are useful today for many. Foreign leaders may need a quick comparison of dossiers, to prepare for a change in tone and style as there is a changing of the guard in our State Department. The general public will benefit when listening to the news sound bites that once came from Rice and will now be heard from Clinton.

When reading the book with expectation of keeping score for a United States President I found myself using a very different score card than I would if scoring for a Secretary of State. Making that translation finds me somewhat objective, for the first time, of Clinton and somewhat critical of Rice. It’s easy to be objective of someone with no appreciative track record on the subject. While it would appear easier to be objective with a person who’s whole career is based on foreign policy, there are a lot more data points that could cause one to be more critical. It is my hope that my translating Morris’ comparisons here will cause my readers to formulate their own opinions and then compare them to the conclusions I arrive at. My conclusion is comes after eh list of comparisons. So to be fair, please do not speed read to the end without allowing time to formulate your own opinion. Sharing them on this site may be enlightening for all.

The following are paraphrases from Dick Morris’ book Condi Vs Hillary where there is a purposeful comparison of the two women. Out of context of the book, there is an appearance of redundancy where the reader of the review does not benefit from the detail in context of the situation where the comparison was made. If you need to go get the book. I invite you to take in my work here and comment with your own contrasts and opinions.

Success and the Coat-tails of Success

1. Hillary: Though a bright and talented graduate at Yale Law School, Hillary had failed her D.C. bar exam and would have a hard time landing a top position in Washington. Women lawyers were not yet in strong demand, and a bar a failure would have been a major strike against her. An easy alternative was Arkansas, where se had passed the bar the previous year and had since been admitted to practice law. Her decision to move to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and accept a teaching position in a clinic handling criminal law – a subject in which she had never before shown any interest – changed her destiny and paired her future with Bill Clinton’s. When he was elected governor. She was named the Rose Law Firms first woman partner. When he was elected president, she ultimately evolved into a Senate candidate from New York.

Condi: Condi was never married and her success has never been a matter of hitching her wagon to the political fortunes of any powerful man. Instead, she advanced strictly on her own merits. She began her career by excelling as an academic and specializing in foreign affairs. Eventually she brought that that expertise to a family of presidents. But it was always Condi’s own accomplishments that made her a prominent figure. When she was still in her twenties, she was elevated to the Stanford University faculty. She came to Washington during the administration of President George H. Bush because she had impressed the National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, who met her at Stanford. After her White House experience, she so impressed the incoming president of Stanford that he asked her to be the provost…Through Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State, George Shultz, she met then governor George W. Bush , and prepared him for the foreign policy issues. The younger Bush was so impressed by Condi’s abilities that he appointed her National Security Advisor and then secretary of state.

Experience

2. Hillary: came to the White House as a wife, with no experience in government, no portfolio, no administrative experience.

Condi: Rice entered the White House as a high-level expert, charged with guiding America through the delicate process of German reunification, the dismantling of the Soviet’s satellite empire in Eastern Europe, and the eventual breakup of the Soviet Union itself. Condi: while in the White House quietly advanced and enhanced her reputation in the field of national security and Soviet relations with a keen understanding of how to make the system work. She was a success.

Activism

3. Hillary: While in the White House created chaotic bureaucracy just to draft her health care bill, which happen to run more than a thousand pages. She alienated Congress – even in her own party- as well as health professionals and the press. The collapse of her reform plan was a colossal personal and professional failure on her first national public stage. But that doesn’t stop her. Hillary never stops thinking about tomorrow. Each day is devoted to plotting, scheming, preparing and positioning to advance further toward her goal.

Condi: Her style has been described as “diplomatic activism” Every day she is seen in center stage all over the globe promoting democracy by lecturing and cajoling our allies and standing tall against our adversaries. She is a creature of today.

Personal agenda

4. Hillary: is a plodder; she approaches the presidential race like a long to-do list.

Condi: is woman on a mission, but one with substantive purpose, not a personal agenda.

Riding on Coattails

5. Hillary: uses the media to bolster her image as a player in foreign affairs and defense policy, and then never points out her lack of credentials. She recently acquired a seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee has given her a platform, but so far has not been influential on any important matters…At best, she merely exploits relationships her husband forged with foreign leaders while he was president. While on international trips with her husband she was given the separate first lady’s tour of schools and hospitals, she did not participate in any matters of state during her husband’s presidency and has no real experience or expertise in foreign affairs.

Condi: See previous note

Recognition

6. Hillary: wants to be recognized by big-money donors, the national media, the political establishment, and ultimately, the voters themselves in her quest for power. Hillary believes that the best path to greatness is through politics, elections debating advertising, attacking, rhetoric, and maneuvering. She campaigns. Hillary is always telling people just how good she is. Hillary has one mentor, Bill Clinton.

Condi: has always banked on her ability to win admiration from important people to propel her. Rice’s career suggests the she put her stock in excellent performance instead upward. She auditions. She believes in attracting mentors and letting people notice her abilities by themselves. Condi has many mentors Czech refugee Professor Josef Korbel (Madeleine Albright’s father), National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, Secretary of State George Schultz, and two presidents named Bush.

Promotions

7. Hillary: works day and night to achieve greatness. She demands to be promoted.

Condi: had had greatness thrust upon her, usually by men in positions of authority and power who are dazzled by her performance. It is they who seek to advance Condi.

Early Awards

8. Hillary: won no major awards in college. But she used canny timing and political smarts to achieve recognition at her graduation anyway. Having been elected president of Wellesly student government, she demanded that a student – herself - be permitted to address the graduates at the ceremony to protest the Viet Nam War and societal values. Her speech put her on the national map.

Condi: At the University of Denver, Condolezza Rice won every imaginable award. Graduating with a BA in political science, the nineteen-year-old prodigy was the most honored member of her graduating class. Admitted to the honor society Phi Beta Kappa, she won the outstanding Senior Woman Award, which the university said was the highest honor granted to a female member of the senior class whose personal scholarship, responsibilities, achievements, and contributions to the University throughout her University career deserve recognition.

Two Approaches to Greatness

9. Hillary: At the Rodham house, Hillary was under no stress for disciplined self-improvement with no sense of great obstacles to overcome.. Hillary’s own reports suggest that her childhood involved little of the structured nurturing and strict goal setting that Rice saw. Hillary writes the she grew up in a cautious, conformist era in American History and says her high school days resembled that of Grease or Happy Days. Where Rice pursued piano, flute, skating and French Hillary was playful. Rather than lessons and practice, she was just hanging out. Her elementary accomplishments mount to being elected co captain of the safety patrol. She lost her run for student council against boys and as a consolation; she was elected president of the local fan club for Fabian, a teen idol.
Hillary came of age in the context of a movement – the anti war student activism of the 1960s. In her memoir she sees herself from the start of adulthood as an agent of social change, an activist in a political world, always a part of a group, a phalanx committed to rearranging the world.

Like Hillary, the Democratic Party and its surrogate bodies deal with groups, seeking to enhance their cohesion and a feeling of commonality. The message was clear: We must hang together and move up or down this unit. The environment is tailor-made for Hillary Clinton, who learned to speak, act, and think as a group. She is a pack animal, at her best when she is a spokesperson for others, especially when attacking the group’s enemies.

Condi: Rice has a way of attracting attention and approval with her talents. Her first performance at the age of four years old was at a tea in Birmingham, at a “tea for the new teachers” where she was reportately able to read music notes before she could read letters. She was an accomplished pianist at an early age.

Her foreign policy interests date from her days as an undergraduate student at the University of Denver, where she was enthralled by Professor Josef Korbel. Rice began as she puts it to fall I love with foreign affairs. Korbel inspired her to become a professor, choosing academia over a career in law. Rice received her masters at Notre Dame and then a PhD at the University of Denver where she won a fellowship to Study at Stanford’s Center for International Security.

When Rice met Brent Scowcroft at a seminar in Washington she challenged him on his views. Brent said “this is somebody I need to get to know. It’s an intimidating subject. Here ‘s a young girl, and she is not at all intimidated.”

Rice was born of privileged professional elderly parents and was surrounded by a large community of structured support in Birmingham. She excelled in a culture of racism and stood up to it beyond the levels of her parents at every turn. She came of age rejecting group identification and insisting on her ability, as an individual, to rise above the limits her race imposed on her. In her startling rise to the top, she seems to belie the need for group cohesion or ethnic group advocacy. And, in this spirit, she identifies most profoundly with he core belief of the Republican Party: That it is the individual who matters, regardless of circumstance, geography, race, sex, or even poverty.

Their records

10. Hillary: Where Hillary’s record starts in 2000, that’s it 2000!; She passed fifteen symbolic bills, such as naming the courthouse after Thurgood Marshall and five substantive bills such as pay for city projects in response to 911. However she was particularly active in co-sponsoring bills, typically those of Republicans, to co-sponsor a bill you must simply sign ones name to it and attending a press conference – a free ride. She has been a knee-jerk supporter of bills that may gain her public visibility. Despite Hillary’s voluble pledge to fight for Israel in the Senate as she represented the state with the largest Jewish population, not a single piece of legislation, resolution, amendment or even expression of the sense of the Senate in the entire period of 2001 to 2004 even mentioned the name Israel. Yet Israel went through perilous times in those four years.

To review Hillary Clinton’s legislative proposals – most of which have not passed is also to grasp what a big spender she is. Hillary’s record as a far cry from the fiscal conservative she pretends to be as she wags her finger at the Bush deficit and demands financial restraint. In fact, as the National Taxpayers Union noted, “she has topped the Senate by sponsoring or co-sponsoring 174 spending bills.”

Hillary will deceive the public to create an image of herself as a person of real human qualities. She went on national television to tell a story of how she was a more than a New York Senator and that she was a concerned mother. She told the national audience that her daughter Chelsea was jogging around the trade center when the 911 tragedy happened. Chelsea was three miles away staring at the TV in awe like the rest of the world. She was in no danger and her mother had nothing to be concerned about.

When it came to discovery of the cost of the damage she rode Senator Chuck Schumer’s coat tail around the city and then to Washington to garner $20M from Bush. Hillary invited journalist for a chat in the aftermath where she told them that it was not Chuck Schumer but herself that was responsible for the $20M.

Condi: Under President George H. Bush Rice was right in the middle of the superpower relationship with Russia. She prepared the president for four summit meeting with Gorbachev. She traveled with Bush to Poland and Germany to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall. She participated in the first summit meeting, the Seasick Summit on 16 foot seas in the Mediterranean Sea. Bush introduced her to Gorbachev saying “ this is Condolezza Rice, she tells me everything there is to know. Gorbachev replied, “I hope you know a lot.”
In those negotiations the neo conservatives of Washington did not want to get along with the Soviets they wanted to change it. But Rice, Bush, and Secretary of State Baker were reluctant to get too far ahead of the reforms in the Soviet Union lest they undermine Gorbachev. As Rice puts it “ When you have so much power, you have to be careful not to get in the way of historical events that are going your way. Too heavy of a hand might have provoked a countermeasure.”

Rice saw the reunification of Germany as the most important issue in this entire period…because that is where the Cold War began and that was the only place that the Cold War could end. They struggled with the balance of arms reductions talks and the complete dismantling of the Soviet Union. Rice felt that “there was a race to ending the Cold war while Gorbachev was still in power. It was a very delicate balance, a very short window of opportunity, because the Soviet Union had to be strong enough to sign away its four-powers agreement, but not strong enough to stop the reunification…I always try to remind people that some year and a half, fifteen months after we managed to unify Germany, the Soviet Union broke apart, so the timing could not have been better.

Rice and Yeltsin; Rice didn’t like Boris “he struck me as mercurial and difficult” she said. Nicholas Lemann observed that when you are dealing with Condolezza Rice and you are messy and undisciplined, you’ve got two strikes against you. When she brought Yeltsin to the White House they brought him to the basement door for a low profile entrance. Yeltsin folded his arms in the back seat of the car and said I’m not going in unless we meet in the Oval Office. After they glared at each other in silence Rice said. “Well we may as well go back to your hotel” Yeltsin backed down and the meeting went on as planned to the Russian’s delight.

Style

11. Hillary: Clinton’s style in confrontations are quite personal and unusually tied with her demand for political fealty with everyone she works with. No decision is made without politics injecting themselves into the equation. In the White House when it came to making cuts in her staff it was to eliminate anyone who was not loyal to her

Condi: After she left Stanford Condi reflected “Maybe I was too much of a hard-as. Maybe if I had to do it over, I’d be a little gentler. But Condi’s hammer was coated in velvet. She was charming, very gracious, but she can really come down on you when she has to. There is no hint of favoritism in Rice’s style. At Stanford when she made budget cuts she was all business.

Affirmative action

12. Hillary: On the merits, President Clinton said that he agreed that it would be better to base affirmative action on criteria other that race and gender, But Hillary convinced him that politics would not permit such a deviation from the party line.

Condi: She walked a narrow line she felt was right, backing opportunity by supporting affirmative action in hiring of the faculty but insisting on standards by opposing the awarding of tenure based on racial or gender criteria.

Education

13. Hillary: wrote a best selling book, It Takes a Village, urging a mentoring approach to raising and educating the young. She wrote of the importance of finding role models for children so they can become sober and responsible citizens.

Condi: Condi actually lived what Hillary wrote about. Condi was a professional educator, Hillary was not. Condi’s record is not just one of advocacy, but also of action.

At their respective pinnacle

14. Hillary:… if Hillary has a pinnacle, Dick Morris did not write about it.

Condi: In the Bush/Condi relationship with Condi as his National Security Advisor it was a partnership with Condi bringing an academic grounding, the perspective of history, and a dose of real politik. Bush contributed his unwavering grasp of good and evil, his values-oriented approach to international issue. As Nicholas Lemann puts it: Rather than her simply guiding him through the unfamiliar world abroad, it looks as if something more complicated and interesting were going on: he’s actually influencing her, and she seems to be performing for him in immensely useful service of transforming shorthand impulses into developed stated policy.

In a sense, Bush and Rice had both come a long way from their starting points on foreign policy based on the balance of power. Together they formed a consensus based on a Wilsonian world view, base on universal values and a commitment to freedom and democracy.

Post 911 Condolezza began to speak of a balance of power that favors freedom an interesting merger of the language of geopolitical strategy and the objectives of a morally based foreign policy. In the war on terror, she began the policy that to win the war on terror we must win the war on ideas. Terror she told a group “thrives in the airless space where new ideas, new hopes and new aspirations are forbidden. Terror lives when freedom dies. True peace will come only when the world is safer, better and freer.”Condi’s definition of freedom “I’ve watched over the last year and a half how people want to have human dignity worldwide.. Your hear of Asian values of Middle Eastern values and how that means people can’t really to democracy or they’ll never have democracy because they have no history of it and so forth. I remember the stories before the liberation of Afghanistan that the nation wouldn’t get it that they were all warlords and it would be chaos, then we got the pictures of people dancing in the streets of Kabul just because they now could listen to music or send girls to school.”

Two Women Two Paths

15. Hillary: at age 19 she was in her freshman year at Wellesley. When Hillary was thirty two, her husband was serving as governor of Arkansas and Hillary was promoted to partner in the politically connected Rose Law Firm, the mot prestigious in the state. At age 35 Hillary was settling in to life as Arkansas’ first lady. At age forty-six Hillary became America’s first lady. Her first task? A disastrous health care reform bill, which sullied Clinton’s first two years in office and led directly to her party’s humiliating loss of both houses of Congress.

Condi: at age 19 she was graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Denver. In her twenties with no husband to latch on to Rice earned her PhD and a post graduate fellowship and was appointed to associate professor of political science at Stanford. At thirty five Condi began her service on the National Security Council as the president major expert on the Soviet Union. At forty-seven Condi was appointed National Security Advisor to President Bush

One –v- Two Messages

16. Hillary: Hillary is outspoken on terrorism issues and has volubly condemned the Syrian presence in Lebanon. But she also criticized Ibraham al-Jaafri, the new prime minister – the first since free elections were held – expressing “concern” over his Shiite background and possible ties to Iran. Here again she put her foot in her mouth: Most observers have gone out of their way to underscore al Jaafari’s nationalist animosity to his coreligionists in Iran against whom Iran waged war in the 1980”s.

Condi: Rice started her career as an apostle of the balance of power philosophy. The Bush camp circa 1999- 2000 was populated by the voices of “neorealism” In the New Republic, Jacob Heilbrunn quotes a senior advisor to the Bush campaign as saying “as power diffuses around the world, America’s position relative to others will inevitably erode…The proper goal for American policy…is to encourage a multi polarity characterized by cooperation and concert rather than competition and conflict” Heilbrunn also quotes the Bush as saying that “order is more fundamental than justice”. But Rice prevailed over those dour and pessimistic voices and helped President Bush to a new, values oriented optimism about America’s global role. A Wilsonian universal values philosophy. In 2002 Rice began to merge the two philosophies by speaking of the balance of power that favors freedom.


When I finished the book my gut told me that perhaps a pliable personality with no moral compass would make a good Secretary of State. Then as time raced forward and events merged with my finally completing this review I find the danger is she would be representing a president that is still campaigning... not for office of United States president but the Worlds Premier. So far on foreign diplomacy Clinton has shocked the world with statements like “we will not let China’s record on human rights get in the way of our discussions” are back stopped by a president who is willing to over turn anything that currently stands, starting with terrorism. Apparently by not saying the word the world can sweep it under the carpet. After going back through my notes I find In Hillary a woman that would impress a specific world leader that she will say what needs to be said to pander a cooperative stance that may not necessarily be in the best interest of the United States. While that sounds good at first glance, that world leader would be forewarned that the Secretary of State has a position that is blowing in the wind.

Contrarily the World leaders were experiencing a person that was professionally firm with a moral message that had a backbone. When she spoke World Leaders would be able to take her words, agreeable or not, as genuine. So let me restate them again here as I cannot improve on them: Condolezza began to speak of a balance of power that favors freedom an interesting merger of the language of geopolitical strategy and the objectives of a morally based foreign policy. In the war on terror, she began the policy that to win the war on terror we must win the war on ideas. Terror she told a group “thrives in the airless space where new ideas, new hopes and new aspirations are forbidden. Terror lives when freedom dies. True peace will come only when the world is safer, better and freer.” That foreign policy is about to be lost in the agenda’s of two people bent on power recognition for themselves.