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Asking Hillary Clinton to serve as secretary of State was "one of the best decisions I ever made as president," President Obama told philanthropists and donors gatheredTuesdayat the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York City.

The president showered the former first lady and front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination with praise, saying he "will always be grateful for her extraordinary leadership."

"She looks much more rested," Obama said to laughter.

The president and his former Cabinet secretary were making their first joint appearance since Clinton's interview with The Atlantic this summer, during which she levied criticism against the president's handling of Syria.

In the interview, Clinton said that she would have armed the Syrian opposition two years ago and suggested failing to do so had enabled the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

"The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against [Syrian President Bashar] Assad there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled, Clinton said.

Clinton subsequently called Obama to tell him the remark was not intended as an attack on him or his policies, according to a spokesman.

Last week, Obama won congressional authorization for a program to train and equip the moderate Syrian opposition as part of the administration's fight against ISIS. White House officials have defended the move, saying that they used the time to properly vet which rebels would receive U.S. arms and training.

The president did not discuss that program or the first round of airstrikes launched against ISIS and al Qaeda targets in Syria during his speech.

Instead, the president highlighted his administration's efforts to assist civil society groups. Obama on Tuesdaywill issue a new presidential memorandum requiring federal agencies to consult regularly with civil society groups and resist efforts by foreign governments to limit American assistance to activists.

Link:
Obama: Making Hillary Clinton secretary of State one of my best decisions

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Washington (CNN) -- Republicans who want to taint Hillary Clinton are going to lengths to link the former secretary of state with President Barack Obama and his sagging poll numbers.

Throughout the party's infrastructure, Republicans say that linking Clinton with Obama, especially labeling her possible 2016 campaign as "Obama's Third Term," is the most potent attack.

America Rising, an anti-Clinton super PAC that has looked to define the former first lady for the better part of a year, will push out a series of talking points giving Clinton the third-term label, and the group plans to fundraise off the push staring Tuesday.

"Hillary Clinton has a Barack Obama problem," reads a lengthy research document that will go out to GOP pundits, strategists, conservative organizations and media members Tuesday. "No matter how many of her advisors whisper to reporters that she's different from Barack Obama, Americans still know who she is: Barack Obama Part Deux."

The document lists "10 Reasons Why Clinton 2016 = Obama's Third Term," including her praise for Obama as she left the State Department in 2013, her role in his first four years of foreign policy and Clinton's support of Obamacare.

"Looking ahead to 2016, it's critical that Obama's 3rd Term is an element of the broader narrative defining Sec. Clinton, especially since she still has a higher approval than he does," Tim Miller, the group's director, said in a statement to CNN.

Multiple Republican operatives said this strategy -- which is coming from national party groups, outside super PACs and GOP politicians -- is best at engaging the base and raising money. Therefore, it is something they plan to continue in the coming months and possibly years.

Democrats, too, are concerned about the attack line. In August, some close to Clinton told CNN that labeling the former secretary of state as the successor to Obama's legacy was a possible problem.

"She was in his government, she was at his side," said one source. "That is, the way to go after her is four more years of the same old thing. The question they should ask her is 'Tell me 10 things that you disagree with him on.' "

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GOP's favorite label for Hillary 2016: 'Obama's Third Term'

For Congress, Lois Lerner pleaded the Fifth, but for Politico, the embattled ex-IRS director gave a breezy biographical sketch that included her insistence that she had nothing to apologize for and that she did nothing wrong. Now Republicans are fuming.

Her decision to make unsubstantiated claims to a media outlet while claiming Fifth Amendment protections from answering Congress questions is telling, said House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa, who headed up a panel to quiz Ms. Lerner about her agencys delay of nonprofit applications to tea party groups, Politico reported.

She appears to have great confidence that her allies in the Obama Administration will not consider legal action after she resigned and declined to discuss the IRS actions against private citizens, Mr. Issa went on, Politico reported.

Ms. Lerner admitted her division had paid extra attention to applications from groups with tea party in their names at the request of her boss, Politico reported. But she denied that her Democratic leanings influenced her scrutiny of conservative groups though Republicans have released emails showing that perhaps the opposite, in some cases, was true, Politico reported.

Mr. Issa is not the only Republican to criticize Ms. Lerner for speaking to the press, rather than Congress.

House Speaker John Boehners staff posted a blog blasting her claim to Politico that shes not sorry for anything I did, she said, in the article.

Thanks to President Obama and his cadre of cover-up artists, we still dont know what exactly that entailed, Mr. Boehners blog read, Politico reported.

And Rep. Jim Jordan, who chairs the IRS Oversight subcommittee, said Ms. Lerners interview with Politico was a poke in the eye to the American citizens who were targeted by the IRS, Politico reported.

Read more:
GOP fumes as Lois Lerner talks to press but snubs Congress

Former Internal Revenue Service Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner cited the Fifth...

Everyone in Washington has a P.R. machine, or at minimum, an agenda. That's certainly the case with Lois Lerner, the former IRS executive whose division targeted conservative nonprofit applicants with delays and harassment.

Lerner's division of the IRS systematically obstructed and denied status to Tea Party groups while subjecting many of the smallest ones those most vulnerable and least likely to be lawyered up to inappropriate demands for information that was not legally required. In one case, this included the content of the opening prayer recited in meetings, and in others, this IRS Inquisition demanded that leaders of certain groups pledge never to run for office.

Lerner is out of that business now, and on to a new campaign. This campaign, in which she has enlisted friends and former colleagues, aims to tell the side of the story that she has refused to give Congress under oath.

The resulting Politico piece includes this is no joke the revelations that she once baked brownies for colleagues and that she loves dogs. How delightful for her and the dogs! But so what? Lerner cited the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer questions about her involvement in this scandal. The reason for doing that is that she believes her answers could facilitate a criminal prosecution against her. The mysterious destruction of evidence in this case strongly suggests she is right to worry about that. So does her concerned email inquiry to government IT workers as to whether her instant messages with colleagues could ever be obtained by congressional investigators.

Lerner is willing to testify only in the news media, where the whole truth is not required and irrelevant information can be shared to make her seem less unsympathetic.

But Lerner's complaints about her treatment, her inability to find a job to supplement her pension, and her legal bills fall flat. She and her attorneys complain that the disparaging opinions she once expressed by email about conservatives, later obtained by Congress, should not be used against her. It would be unreasonable, she and her defenders point out, to expect her not to have opinions.

She is correct, America is a free country where all may express their views. But then, that's precisely why Lerner finds herself in so much hot water. Her IRS division used government power to suppress the political opinions of others to make private citizens unfree to express opinions she does not like.

If liberals are so irked that conservatives have freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom to spend their own money on advocacy, there is a proper channel for their frustration. They can weaken or even abolish the First Amendment to the Constitution. Democrats tried this in the U.S. Senate earlier this month, and good for them it is the right of every elected official to take such a political risk, because voters can hold such officials accountable.

But it's quite another thing for powerful, entrenched and unaccountable bureaucrats to abuse their power and attack others' constitutional rights from deep within the intestines of the government. This is why Lerner now finds herself a pariah, and it's also why she isn't a victim.

Link:
Cry us a river, Lois Lerner

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