Here we go again. After Hillary Clinton’s last day in office
last week, every news media source was exercising considerable effort in
putting a positive spin on Clinton’s “legacy” as Secretary of State. Although
most political insiders believe that the 2016 Democratic nomination is Vice
President Joe Biden’s to lose, that hasn’t stopped anyone from bloating
Clinton’s “credentials” like a porcupine fish (unlike a pufferfish, it has
spines to sting the nonbelievers). Hillary—despite her claim that she has no further
political ambitions—has already launched a new website called hillaryclintonoffice.com. There is
little on it except a big picture of an airbrushed Hillary from the shoulders
up—sans the frumpy figure we saw sitting next to the lithe Barack Obama on 60 Minutes; at least she doesn’t have to
consume all those high-calorie dinners-of-state she was served at those 112
countries she’s visited, and maybe even enroll in an aerobics class. Oh yes,
the website also has contact information for media and speaking engagements,
and for you to grovel and tell her how much you worship her very feet.
Am I being cynical? Sure, why not? If Hillary Clinton was
not the wife of someone named Bill, would people even know who she is? Not
likely. Plenty of people have more personality than she does, and her accomplishments
read more like a grocery list than anything noteworthy. There has been a great
deal of intellectual legerdemain involved in the attempt to concoct a best
possible narrative. The only thing an “expert” on the foreign policy on
National Public Radio could come-up with was her supposed brokering of an
oil-sharing deal between Sudan and South Sudan (although it was admitted after
almost two years it still hasn’t been implemented) and Burma; what exactly she
had to do with the latter’s recent lessening of military rule is unclear. The
closest thing to a criticism was that she didn’t initiate policy; this was
excused as being a “good soldier” and going along with administration policy.
Benghazi wasn’t even mentioned. How does she rank with other Secretaries of
State? Probably not in the same class as George Marshall, but it isn’t “fair”
to judge her because all administrations are “different.” And besides, Hillary
had to deal with so much, the “Arab Spring” and all.
There seems to be hardly any legitimate critique of Clinton
“accomplishments,” and her 69 percent approval rating only makes sense in that
context. Sen. John McCain continues to make a hypocritical buffoon of himself
when he praises Clinton’s diplomatic acumen, yet at the same time blasts
Obama’s foreign policy. What sense does that make? None. Fox News’ Brit Hume admitted that Clinton has
had no major “gaffes”—like the 2008 racial code “hard working people—white
Americans” crack, and the bizarre RFK assassination stream-of-consciousness
puzzler—and she worked “hard” to get to
all those 112 countries, but this hardly justifies the adulation she is
receiving. Iran may or may not be closer to a nuclear bomb, there has been no
“reset” with relations with Russia, and peace between Israel and its neighbors
remains far apart. Interestingly, Israeli leaders praise her to high heaven
while giving Obama the cold shoulder; one can surmise the reason.
Some who sing Hillary’s praises are out-of-control in their
overreach. I read a post by someone named Eli Sugarman. “Hillary Clinton is
widely admired for her intelligence, drive, and success as secretary of state.
Her four years in office have been marked by a series of noteworthy
accomplishments and near lack of serious missteps. Replacing her is a daunting
task.” Yeah, it will be a “daunting task” to do better than these “noteworthy”
accomplishments:
People-to-People
Diplomacy. The new Secretary of State, John Kerry, will need to sacrifice doing
real diplomacy is he expects to beat Hillary’s 112 countries visited.
The Importance of
Economics. This is a little muddled. Her economic “vision” is not
explained, but she did support “traditional economic aspects of foreign policy
– such as sanctions – including those that crippled the Iranian government –
and free trade – including Free Trade Agreements with allies Panama, Colombia,
and South Korea.” Are these “accomplishments”—or simply following long-held
policy?
Restoring American
Credibility. Hillary has supposedly “rejuvenated U.S. engagement in the
Middle East by brokering a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel earlier this
year. Her shuttle diplomacy and coordination with Egyptian President Mohammed
Morsi will likely give the U.S. greater leverage to pursue a robust peace
process in 2013.” Some people might beg to differ on her actual expertise in
brokering agreements—rather than just being humored. Clinton did not broker
anything with Hamas representatives at all; that was Egypt and other Muslim
parties. And as I mentioned before, on one of her last visits to Egypt she was greeted
not as a "rock star" but with brickbats and chants of “Hillary get out.”
Diplomacy is National
Security. “She was also a strong
proponent of NATO airstrikes in Libya that eventually led to Muammar Gaddafi’s
ouster. Her active diplomacy was critical to securing United Nations Security
Council authorization of the Libya mission and maintaining strong European and
regional support for it.” Well, actually, no; news reports at the time noted
that Clinton had little input in it, and was not entirely supportive of the
NATO action in Libya.
Texts From Hillary. Now
we are getting somewhere. “In 2012, Clinton became an internet sensation
because of a series of memes depicting her having fictitious, comical text
exchanges with other celebrities while wearing her trademark sunglasses. Texts
from Hillary became so popular that Clinton herself submitted her own caption
to the website and invited its creators to meet with her at the State
Department. Her star power and ability to capture the imagination of
individuals around the world is one noteworthy aspect of her success.” Or is
that people with no life of their own, like those Trekkies? Hillary’s groupies
certainly behave as if they are under some kind of mind control. Anyways, we
sure glad to know what Hillary does in her off-time—certainly not catching up
on text books that might give her clue about how to accomplish
real things.
Of course, “legitimate” news media might take a more even-handed
approach to evaluation—except that Newsweek
and TIME magazine have long abandoned
its pretenses to objectivity and have gone the celebrity tabloid route. While
the latter confessed that “Clinton is piling up awards and accolades faster than
clear-cut achievements” and “hasn’t done anything as momentous as opening the
door to China like Henry Kissinger or assembling the first Gulf War coalition
like James Baker,” Clinton nevertheless has to her credit “the liberation of
Libya, establishment of diplomatic ties with Burma and the assembly of a
coalition against Iran bear her imprimatur.” Other than what was already
mentioned concerning Libya, the opening of ties to Burma had more to do with
internal politics in the country, and if one considers that the Obama
administration had sought to unfreeze relations with Iran, her “diplomacy” has
been an abject failure.
Without any real achievements to gush about, TIME instead gushed about Clinton’s “legendary”
endurance. “She maintained a punishing
18-plus-hour-a-day schedule on her weeklong swing from Libya to Central and
South Asia. At the end of her day in New York City last September, with its
endless one-on-one meetings, public appearances and forums, Clinton sat down in
a closed session with the 27 E.U. Foreign Ministers and listened as each aired
opinions on U.S. foreign policy. Even as glazed looks settled over her staff,
Clinton retained an easy and relaxed demeanor, speaking off the cuff and calmly
responding to bitter criticism of the U.S.’s veto threat against a vote on
Palestinian statehood”—which wasn’t too hard for her, given Clinton’s well-known
hob-knobbing with the right-wing of the Israeli government. I suspect that some of those 18 hours spent napping
on airplanes, while her glazed-eyed staff were up doing most of her prep work.
OK, attending meetings, listening and occasionally talking is hard
work—especially if you are getting on in age. Anyways, I think calling it bitter “criticism” from European Union
representatives was probably a bit of hyperbole.
Of course, the staid BBC might be counted on to put some
perspective on Hillary’s true legacy, but alas this is not the case. On World News radio, I was bemused by the
gushing BBC presenter who was clearly beside herself in her admiration of
Clinton, as if she has a personal stake in her, like so many of the Clinton
disciples and groupies. On the BBC
America website, there was much more of the same. Contradictory statements
abound, which typically occurs when one grasps any thin reed. Pakistan Foreign
Minister Hina Rabbani Khar was expected to say something nice about Hillary,
and he obliged in a backhanded sort of way. He was quoted as saying "Pakistan-US
relations went through the worst time during Clinton's tenure as secretary of
state. When you come out of the worst times, I must give her a lot of credit
for the wisdom she showed.”
He was referring to Clinton’s “apology” over the November
2011 NATO air strikes on Pakistani border troops, an incident in which
Pakistani authorities admitted that their commanders had been informed that
Afghan forces would be operating in an ant-Taliban operation, and that
Pakistani forces did fire mortars and automatic weapons which caused the
Afghans to request the air support. U.S. officials—including the
president—offered the Pakistani government their condolences and promised a
full investigation, but Pakistani public opinion was already at a low-point
concerning relations between the two countries, no thanks to “diplomacy” that
did not convince Pakistani authorities to be more cooperative to coalition
objectives and less so to that of the Pakistani Taliban and Al-Qaeda. In the
end Clinton’s “apology” turned out to be less an act of statesmanship, but a
crumb to Pakistani officials who only wanted to extract a face-saving statement
after having decided that the closure of NATO supply routes was proving to be counter-productive.
The BBC also “credited” Clinton as a “foil” for the more
“aloof” Obama—who left the “pressing the flesh” and “leaving the care and feeding”
of foreign leaders to Clinton. But no doubt Clinton relished the attention. But again the criticisms of Obama and praises
of Clinton make absolutely no sense when it is claimed that Clinton has no
major accomplishments because she is only following administration policy; and
yet we hear comments from Jake Sullivan (who’s he?) like "The single
biggest thing she's leaving behind is having restored American leadership.” If
that is true, she did it all by
herself? That’s like the film Zero Dark
Thirty’s claims that it was some second-string CIA operative who happened
to be a red-haired white female who was responsible for the elimination of Osama
bin Laden.
The BBC admitted that the "reset with Russia has
malfunctioned while Iran is getting closer to a nuclear bomb.” And why is that?
“Clinton clearly decided not to risk her
reputation trying to bang heads together in the thankless task of Middle East
peacemaking (she probably didn’t much care to try to outwit that Putin
fella, either). But Clinton and her aides say you need to look at the big
picture.” Alright, let’s back-up now. Is the “big picture” the fact that
Clinton is such a media hound and image conscious that the hard work required
of achieving diplomatic breakthroughs is inimical to her? That she will not engage
in any undertaking if it doesn’t further inflate her self-image?
Clinton was praised in some circles for the release of
Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, but it took the skills of an experienced
hand, assistant secretary of state Kurt Campbell, to conduct the actual negotiations
with the Chinese. And in a final piece of mental gymnastics, USA Today went bonkers with the claim
that Clinton conducted “high wire” diplomacy when she had to” jungle” two
cellphones to persuade Turkey and Armenia to abide by an agreement to normalize
relations. She “succeeded”—well, not really. It was only a temporary “nudging
together.”
To be fair, most of the trench warfare over the stimulus
program, health care reform and the debt have not been fought personally by the
president; but throughout history presidents have set the agenda and his subordinates
negotiated such deals with Congress. The difference here is that the president
is expected to take responsibility for the success or failure of those
policies. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton has been given all of the credit for
the successes that she may or may not have had a hand in, and none of the blame
for the failures in foreign policy (see Benghazi). But at least she herself was
honest about her “accomplishments.” After an interview last November, ABC News
noted that “Among her accomplishments, she listed hosting town halls with
global youth, raising awareness for religious minorities, protecting Internet
freedom and advancing rights for women and the LGBT community around the world.”
Leave to her fans to fill in the blank spaces.
These are the “big heels” John Kerry says he has to fill? Oh
well—at least Hillary will have time now to go on all those speaking engagements
to maintain her profile, like Sarah Palin (remember her?). Sure, she knows what
the problems are; if there is anything we’ve learned over the past four years,
she just doesn’t exactly know what to do about them. It isn’t exactly
presidential material, but what does that matter?
No comments:
Post a Comment