2:23 p.m. | Updated In response to the White House’s pushback against his idea that Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joseph R. Biden Jr. might exchange places, Bob Woodward said this afternoon that the idea of a Biden-Clinton swap is “on the table” in the sense that “any legitimate vote-getting strategy is always on the table in politics.”
Mr. Woodward said in an e-mail to The Caucus that “the issue is outlined in the book, as Mark Penn laid out the possibility, when Hillary Clinton was considering the offer to be secretary of state.”
“I am sure Axelrod is correct,” he added. “It is not being discussed at this time in the month before the 2010 elections. Obviously, as the book points out, the political conditions in 2011-12 would determine whether it gets raised then. Shaking things up or re-potting the plant often works in politics—and journalism. Best, Bob Woodward.”
Here’s our original posting on the matter, from this morning:
Just as the buzz from his latest blockbuster book had started to fade, Bob Woodward, The Washington Post journalist and author, found another way to set off the cable news chatter.
In an almost off-hand comment in an interview on CNN on Tuesday night, Mr. Woodward asserted that the White House was considering swapping Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on the 2012 ticket.
“It’s on the table,” Mr. Woodward said on “John King, U.S.A.,” instantly sparking a flurry of Washington what-if gossip, cable news punditry and inside-the-West-Wing parlor games.
The only problem is that the White House says he is flat-out wrong.
“Just absolutely not true. It’s not a discussion that’s happened,” said Robert Gibbs, the president’s press secretary, who called the remarks by Mr. Woodward “a head-scratcher.”
David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president, told The Washington Post, “There’s absolutely nothing to it.”
Mr. Woodward’s comment appeared to come out of left field. His new book, “Obama’s Wars,” after all, is about the Afghanistan war debate, not the politics of the president’s re-election campaign.
But Mr. Woodward’s book does provide some clues to his thinking. On page 31, Mr. Woodward cites speculation two years ago by Mark Penn, Ms. Clinton’s former campaign strategist. Mr. Woodward describes Mr. Penn as supporting the idea of Ms. Clinton for secretary of state as a roundabout way of her getting to the Oval Office.
“If she did the job for four years, Obama might be in trouble and have to dump Biden and pick her to run with him as vice president,” Mr. Woodward wrote about Mr. Penn’s beliefs.
And yet, neither the book nor Mr. Woodward has offered any specifics about who might be considering that possibility now. Mr. Penn is – to put it mildly – not exactly a welcome voice in the halls of the Obama administration.
In Internet-fueled Washington, Mr. Woodward’s remarks have stoked speculation and rumor. CNN gleefully e-mailed a statement to reporters on Wednesday after Mr. Gibbs responded to the issue at a briefing with reporters. “No one in the White House is discussing this as a possibility,” the release said, quoting the network’s White House correspondent, Ed Henry.
An official close to Mr. Biden says the vice president could “care less” about the chatter, and that he chuckled when told of the report.