Obama's move of Jon Huntsman Jr. to China was 'cunning,' White House insider says

Jonathan Alter is a consummate White House insider.

Over the past decade, Alter, a columnist for Newsweek and analyst for NBC News, has interviewed President Barack Obama six times. He conducted interviews with Vice President Joe Biden, Obama's top four aides and roughly 200 others with firsthand knowledge of White House politics for his new book "The Promise: President Obama, Year One."

So when Alter says that a big part of the Obama administration's decision to tap former Utah Gov. Jon Hunstman Jr. for the ambassadorship to China was rooted in the belief that "Huntsman would be a stronger candidate for president" than current GOP frontrunners Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee or Sarah Palin, ears perk up.

"Huntsman is very much an example of Obama's cunning qualities," Alter said Wednesday during a phone interview. "Whether Obama wants to admit it or not, when he surveyed the Republican party for who had talent in the other party and could potentially pose the most threat for him in 2012, believe me, Obama would prefer to run against Romney or Huckabee or Palin than against Jon Huntsman."

In addition to shedding light on the context of Huntsman's ambassadorial appointment, Alter connected Utah to the first year of Obama's presidency by explaining how the downward spiral of Sen. Bob Bennett's political career following his collaboration with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is a cautionary tale. What happened to Utah Republican Bennett, who was denied a new run for his seat during in the state's GOP convention, goes a long way toward explaining why bipartisanship is on the fritz these days in Washington, D.C., he said.

"The kind of mindless purity that destroyed Bob Bennett's Senate career is emblematic of what Obama had to put up with from the other party," Alter said. "Over the course of the year Obama (in essence) realized, 'It's not that these Republicans I'm dealing with are bad guys — they're people that I could do business with if the political climate was different. But they all have to worry that they're going to be another Bob Bennett, and that if they work with a Democrat at all, they're going to get killed at home.'"

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., — a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who just a few months ago appeared destined to lose his Senate seat in the coming midterm elections — paid a heavy price personally and professionally in abiding by Obama's mandate to push health care reform through the Senate, Alter explained.