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“America’s chief diplomat”: Hillary Clinton

By Bronwyn's Harbor on August 10, 2009 at 1:30 AM in Current Affairs

Fareed Zakaria devoted over half of his Sunday CNN show to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — “a wide-ranging conversation on everything from Iran to her relationship with Barack Obama.” Zakaria flew to Nairobi this week to do the interview during Secretary Clinton’s trip to Africa. Since the video runs 34:33, and it’s not necessary to watch (just listen), what I did was prepare my dinner while I listened. Just a thought!

A MUST-DO ITEM: Send an e-mail to Fareed Zakaria GPS — GPS@cnn.com — and vote on his “question of the week”: “How do you think Hillary Clinton is doing as Secretary of State? Give her a grade, and tell us why you think she deserves it.” Zakaria will announce the results on next Sunday’s show.

You can also read the full transcript.

NEXT: Secretary of State 101 3:32
Listen to Fareed’s take on losing presidential candidates who join the winner’s government: past and present.

Of Note: There’s some fascinating American history about the stature of Secretaries of State in this short segment.

  • helenk

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8192669.stm

    SOS Clinton is doing a great job in most places and is the only good official in the bunch.

    There is still so much violence in Iraq, I do not think anyone can fix it.

    WOMEN WITH INTELLIGENCE AND EXPERIENCE,MEN WHO SUPPORT THEM AND COUNTRY BEFORE PARTY ALWAYS

    PUMAS,BUBBAS,EQUALISTS AND THOSE PEOPLE RULE

  • Ladydawnelle

    Oh that was bloody fun!

    Had a real UNLOADING moment doing that little project for Fareeeeeeeeed whatever. I bet they won’t read MINE On tv!

    not on CNN or msnBO

    I bet some on FOX would LOVE it though.

    lol thanks

  • http://larrysinclair-0926.blogspot.com/ jeanniejo

    http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=16&articleid=20090808_16_A3_FirstD512105

    Sullivan blasts Obama plans, says bipartisanship needed

    ‘Sullivan opened his remarks to the Tulsa Republican Club by questioning Obama’s nationality and alluding to an “enemies list” being compiled from e-mails critical of the administration’s health care reform proposal. He spent most of the next 40 minutes attacking the president on matters ranging from energy to management.

    “This is a scary time in Washington,” he said. “It’s a very frightening time. I see Barack Obama is creating an enemies list of people who oppose this miserable health care plan. I think that’s frightening. That’s from a guy that can’t even show a long-form birth certificate. I think we all ought to be prepared to fight that.” …’

    Sullivan is waking up –

    I like the fact that he talks about Obama’s BC — it’s about time these who are in the Congress speak up and take this “fraudulant administration” to task —

    I offer my thanks to my Rep. John Sullivan

  • mark connette

    the “chief diplomat” hillary clinton doesnot have anything to do with talks with Iran, Syria, north korea it seems that she has been pushed aside by obama, in favor of other lower diplomats. Why?

    • http://thesibylspeaks.wordpress.com/ Anthony

      Could it be because her positive polling numbers are leaving him in the dust?

      Little Barry wants the limelight all to himself

      • mark connette

        Hillary needs to resign from this administration…..period She is enabling obama.

        • http://thesibylspeaks.wordpress.com/ Anthony

          If she does it now, she’ll be branded another “Quitter” (a la Palin).

          I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if we see her resign after 2 years in for “philosophical differences”, and then she (and Bill) can start campaigning again for POTUS.

          Maybe a dream, but these days, grasping at straws is the best I can do

        • Ferd Berfle

          Oh, so someone like Kerry can assume the position? No thanks. She is the only adult in this mess of an administration.

        • Julia

          She’s being humilliated for this Admin and other countries as Kenya and North Korea. It’s very appalling.

          • insanelysane

            That is absurd !
            Hillary humiliated?
            Every country that Hilary visits, she takes extra care and time to visit with locals especially women’s groups, woman’s collages and has, by that alone,inspired and supported girls and women. Her goal is to change the world for the females in
            She is and always been an advocate for the poor and the oppressed and she is opening dialogue in some of the most oppressed places on the planet.
            Hilary is not in politics anymore. I am glad for that.
            She is excellent in her job and will make lasting change as only Hillary can.
            I believe she will come away from this Admin unscathed and renowned for her accomplishments and for what she was able to do for the women on the planet.

        • BARB

          http://www.wilx.com/home/headlines/52903182.html#

          Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is happy to answer questions about her own views on world affairs, just don’t ask her what her husband thinks.

          Clinton’s temper flared at a town hall forum in Congo’s capital Kinshasa today when a male university student asked what “Mr. Clinton” thought of World Bank concerns about a multi-billion-dollar Chinese loan offer to the Congo.

          Her reply was incredulous: “You want me to tell you what my husband thinks?”

          Before the moderator quickly moved on to other questions, Clinton told the young man: “If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband.”
          The question comes a week after former President Bill Clinton stole the limelight from the start of his wife’s first trip to Africa when he traveled to North Korea to secure the release of two detained American journalists.

  • Kathleen Wynne

    Anthony and mark,

    Perhaps, Hillary is being pushed out of the picture because Zbig Brezinski is obama’s senior foreign policy advisor. Another interesting tidbit is the fact commonly overlooked by many is that Brezinski was a professor at Columbia Univ. while obama attended there and it has been reported that Brezinski took obama under his wing at that time and began to “groom” him for political office.

    More evidence that Brezinski knows he has greater influence over obama than say, Secretary Clinton, shown in an article published by Bloomberg’s Janine Zacharia, Brzezinski is reported to have said that “Obama recognizes that the challenge is a new face, a new sense of direction, a new definition of America’s role in the world.”

    Brzezinski made the comments in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt.”

    More from the Zacharia article:

    “Obama is clearly more effective and has the upper hand,” Brzezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, said. “He has a sense of what is historically relevant, and what is needed from the United States in relationship to the world.”

    Brzezinski, 79, dismissed the notion that Clinton, 59, a New York senator and the wife of former President Bill Clinton, is more seasoned than Obama, 46. “Being a former first lady doesn’t prepare you to be president,” Brzezinski said.

    Clinton’s foreign-policy approach is “very conventional,” Brzezinski said. “I don’t think the country needs to go back to what we had eight years ago.”

    “There is a need for a fundamental rethinking of how we conduct world affairs,” he added. “And Obama seems to me to have both the guts and the intelligence to address that issue and to change the nature of America’s relationship with the world.”

    Clearly, obama was “picked” by the DNC and supported by Brezinski and Soros to make certain he was put into the WH, in order to advance an agenda that both these men have been anxious to achieve for a long time — “one world government”.

  • veritas

    Too bad Fareed still compares Obama to Lincoln- it’s pretty much a talking point of the Axelrod team with no basis in history- Those of us may remember the Princeton Historian, Sean Wilentz’s take on all of that historical fakery-

    http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-wilentz26jan26,0,5561702.story

    Obama’s Misuse of History- worth another read-
    “The Lincoln comparison is equally tortured. Yes, Lincoln spent only two years in the House after winning election in 1846. Yet his deep involvement in state and national politics began in 1832, the same year he was elected a captain in the Illinois militia — and 28 years before he ran for president. He then served as leader of the Illinois Whig Party and served his far-from-undistinguished term in Congress courageously leading opposition to the Mexican War.

    After returning home, he became one of the leading railroad lawyers in the country, emerged as an outspoken antislavery leader of Illinois’ Republican Party — and then, in 1858, ran unsuccessfully for the Senate and engaged with Stephen A. Douglas in the nation’s most important debates over slavery before the Civil War. It behooves the champions of any candidate to think carefully when citing similarities to Lincoln’s record. In this case, the comparison is absurd. . .
    Spreading bad history is no way to make history.”

  • Kathleen Wynne

    mark,

    I used to feel the same way about Hillary resigning. However, we cannot take out of the equation the MSM and what it would do to her if she did resign. If we had a truly independent media doing the job it was meant to do to preserve democracy by informing citizens with “just the facts”, then I doubt she would have accepted the SOS offer. I think she was smart to accept, under the present circumstances, because (1) she’ll do a lot of good as SOS – tons better than either Kerry or Richardson — and (2) in the process she will defuse the knee-jerk hatred towards her from the MSM, the leaders of the DNC and the sexist pundits that are being called out for their continued sexist attacks against Hillary.

    As a result, she is able to define herself by her excellent work and will be better able to build support for her vision on foreign policy, while under the cloak of the obama administration. How can the media attack her when she is representing the obama administration.

    She’s too smart to be paralized by this administration and they are too narcistic to recognize that she is running circles around them and building support for herself every day she is in this position.

  • Julia

    Hillary Clinton is being humilliated in this Admin and in Kenya (and others countries as North Korea I’m afraid). The keniatan politician which has offered (again)40 guts and 20 cows for Chelsea because of Hillary had a submissive behaviour related to the Lewinsky scandal ,according to this idiot of course, is appalling. I think she’s in a very bad position and obviously not only for these stupid comments and attacks.

  • Tricia Spiegel

    I wish Hillary was in charge of the whole country. The job would have been difficult for anyone, but she would have selected a better team.

    Thanks for this story–I did my email duty. Grade, of course, is an A!

  • Bronwyn’s Harbor

    I disagree about Hillary resigning. I think she has very deftly handled getting along with the administration while emerging as a clearly independent figure who Americans view more favorably than they do Obama.

    Obama’s efforts to push her out of the limelight has backfired on him — instead of being seen photographed all the time with Obama, Hillary has become seen as an independent, in-charge diplomat, as her own person with her own accomplishments.

    I don’t want to see lots of photos and video of Hillary with Obama. I much prefer seeing her on her own — she has enough “star power” and interests enough people that she can get lots ot attention entirely on her own.

    (I had trouble explaining this — hope it makes sense.)

  • Amalia

    Hillary is doing a great job, and you know this because certain types in the media keep bringing up that she is being marginalized. it’s the opposite….she brought in high level staffers to get things going cause there is so much to do.

    as for the recent flap over the questioner in the Congo, I’ve yet to see anyone get the spin right on this. The Secy. of State is in the Congo working on the rape issue. To have a questioner, or a botched translator, put her husband in the primary position over her plays to the problem that is faced in the Congo….men who believe they should run over women. She is working on a deeply serious problem, focusing on helping women, traveling into a dangerous city against the advice of staff, because she believes that she can work to make the lives of women better in the Congo.

    let’s all pay attention to that extraordinary work, helping women and fighting against rape. Viva Hillary.