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Dick Morris: Panetta Carried Out Hillary's Political 'Hit' on Obama
Friday, October 10, 2014 04:33 PM
Desperate to evade blame for a U.S. foreign policy in shambles, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got an old crony — Leon Panetta — to backstab their former boss, President Barack Obama, by blaming him for the bloody rise of the Islamic State (ISIS), says political analyst and author Dick Morris.
Morris told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner on Newsmax TV Friday that Panetta, who served alongside Clinton as director of central intelligence and secretary of defense, is using his new memoir and media tour to help Clinton get distance from a flailing president who she worked for and intends to succeed.
"In the Mafia they do contract hits … and this was a contract hit by Panetta on Obama, paid for by Hillary," said Morris, co-author with Eileen McGann of the best-seller, "Power Grab: Obama's Dangerous Plan for a One Party Nation," said that Panetta
"Panetta, who I worked with in the White House for two years — he's a Clintonista before he's anything else," said Morris.
Panetta served as budget director and then White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and the first lady.
"And Hillary is very, very anxious to make sure that the foreign policy failures of this administration — which are now overwhelmingly apparent to anyone with eyes — will not be blamed on her merely because she was the secretary of state and the author of those policies," said Morris.
"Instead, she wants to blame the president, and it isn't seemly for her to be pointing a finger at the president, so she gets Panetta to do it for her," he said.
Turning to the Republican presidential field for 2016, Morris downplayed the threat by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to bolt the party and take religious conservatives with him if the GOP doesn't actively fight against same-sex marriage.
"Huckabee's not going to run as a third candidate," said Morris. "I'm not even sure he's going to seek the Republican nomination."
But Morris said that the party has to take its social-issues voters seriously, and he argued that Republicans have a strong message to offer — that courts overturning same-sex marriage bans are trampling on states' rights.
"There is nothing more important than community feeling and sentiment in shaping something like a social issue," said Morris. "If the people in the state believe that gay people should be permitted to marry, go do it. If they don't, don't do it. But I don't think it has any place in the court system."
The "Power Grab" author said that federal courts striking down traditional marriage statutes are a sign of the judiciary's direction under Obama.
"The key thing he's done is to politicize the federal court by eliminating the 60-vote requirement in the Senate for confirmation of all but Supreme Court judges," said Morris. "And the result is that he's been able to stack the bench with some definitely far-out liberals, and that's a big part of what he's doing."
