Anecdotal commentary on Clinton and Obama dynamics with no concrete allegations

30 ideas are often stymied by an inexperienced White House that doesn’t understand the role of drama and stagecraft in diplomacy. They say that Hillary is the daring, decisive risktaker, while the president is hampered by slow reflexes and an overly cautious and unimaginative approach. Not surprisingly, Obama hands insist this is wrong. The only significant policy difference between the two principals, they note, was over Afghanistan, where the president’s policy hardly lacked boldness. On Egypt, it was Hillary who early on recommended caution and Obama who insisted that U.S. policy should be to push for an immediate transition. And they offer a domestic example for good measure: had Hillary been president, she would likely have sided with Rahm Emanuel and compromised much earlier on health- care reform, which would have meant a less ambitious bill. Where the risktaking point might apply is in critical personnel decisions. Hillary likes the challenge of handling big, talented, difficult individuals; it’s what attracted her not just to Bill but also to advisers like Richard Holbrooke. Obama (through then national- security adviser Jim Jones) almost fired Holbrooke. Although Hillary told the White House about her own exasperation with Holbrooke (a position she didn’t advertise after his death), Obama’s treatment of the envoy rankled both Clintons. “I never could understand people who didn’t appreciate him,” Bill Clinton said in his eulogy at Holbrooke’s Kennedy Center memorial service. This was a not-so- veiled shot at people like Obama, who was sitting onstage nearby— the president’s no-drama impatience with certain protean characters extends to his strained relationship with the former president. Hillary is caught in the middle, but doesn’t appear to be making efforts to bring the two most important men in her life closer. Even so, she works hard to keep the hatchet with Obama buried. This requires staying on good terms with his White House. Hillary has known Tom Donilon, the national-security adviser, since 1978, when HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_024987