Jonathan Adler points to a Newsweek article by Michael Hirsh, which reports that Sandy Berger and Madeline Albright have been brought back as top foreign policy advisers to Hillary’s presidential campaign:
One of the great dangers to Senator Clinton’s presidential campaign is that when voters think back to the Clinton years, they are unlikely actually to want a replay. Hillary’s supporters are banking that people will recall the strong economic growth, the apparent safety from most terrorist attacks, and the claim of moderate leadership. But people won’t remember the good without also remembering the bad: the fundraising scandals (memories of which have already been rekindled), the personal misbehavior, and the inattention to serious problems like entitlement spending and, more importantly, terrorism. Bringing back the same team that fiddled while al Qaeda planned the attacks of 9/11 is unlikely to inspire confidence. Will it help Clinton’s campaign to be associated with the Secretary of State so memorably lampooned by David Zucker? And what about Mr. Berger–who was disowned by the Kerry campaign when it was revealed that he had taken classified documents from the National Archives, stuffed them in his socks, and subsquently lost or destroyed them. Is it really appropriate to welcome him back when he has still offered no explanation for his criminal actions (and of course, has still not had his security clearance restored)? And beyond the easily lampooned incidents associated with the two, there’s the serious problem: Albright and Berger were two of the key foreign policy figures in an administration that lacked the foresight to take on al Qaeda in a serious way. That’s no crime; plenty of Republican and Democratic officials failed to recognize the threat posed by Osama bin Laden. But if Hillary is going to take advice from veterans of her husband’s administration, she better pick the people who disagreed with the policies that ultimately emerged. History has shown that the Clinton team didn’t act aggressively enough to foil the al Qaeda threat. Hillary is not inspiring confidence that her administration would be any different.
