WaPo/ABC poll shows Hillary Clinton popularity peaking …

Reset embarrassment? A glitch, get over it.

chumpThreads on January 23, 2013 at 10:20 AM

The New Republic, 2009:

Michael Crowley is a senior editor of The New Republic.

The hallmark of Hillary’s tenure as America’s top diplomat has hardly been robotic precision. It has instead been a curious propensity for public statements that require amendment, clarification, and implicit retraction–as illustrated, most recently, by comments she made about Israeli settlement policy that reportedly baffled even her own aides.

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The first sign that Hillary’s lips might be surprisingly loose came on her very first official trip–a swing through Asia in February. Aboard her government jet, Clinton spoke with reporters about prospects for the replacement of the ailing North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il. The longtime diplomatic writers were startled; Clinton had broken what the Times called “an informal taboo” on the subject, which, tellingly, neither she nor top Obama officials seem to have publicly revisited since. More dramatically, on that same trip, Hillary unexpectedly dismissed the role of human rights in U.S.-China relations. Such concerns, she explained, “can’t interfere” with issues like global warming and the economy. “[W]e pretty much know what [Chinese leaders] are going to say” anyway, she shrugged. Human rights advocates were appalled, and State Department officials traveling with her reportedly debated whether she had been refreshingly candid or had committed a colossal blunder.

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Clinton’s August trip to Africa, which featured a town-hall-style meeting in Congo. Tired and frayed after several days of travel on the continent, Hillary lost her patience with a questioner who asked her husband’s view of an obscure World Bank policy. “My husband is not secretary of state, I am,” she snapped. “I am not going to be channeling my husband.” Clinton’s aides initially suggested that a mistranslation was to blame–that, in fact, the questioner had inquired about Barack Obama’s views, not Bill Clinton’s. That turned out not to be the case.

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Speaking again about North Korea, Clinton likened the country to an “unruly teenager” who throws periodic tantrums. While her observation is correct, the language was jarring coming from a government official–particularly when it emerged that Bill Clinton was, at that same time, arranging a visit to Pyongyang to accept the release of two detained American journalists. Then there was her recent visit to Pakistan. While there, Hillary admirably parried anti-American abuse in public forums, but the pressure pushed her into a comment that undercut her mission. During one meeting with several ornery Pakistani journalists, Clinton “appeared to get annoyed,” as one local paper wrote, and snapped that she found it “hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where [Al Qaeda leaders] are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to.” After her rejoinder got a testy reception in the Pakistani media, Hillary “carefully scaled back her comments,” as the Associated Press wrote, insisting that she didn’t believe Pakistan harbors terrorists.

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Clinton revealed at a press conference that Obama’s call for an Israeli settlement freeze included any “natural growth” within existing settlements. The circumstances remain murky, but two sources with detailed knowledge of the U.S.-Israeli relationship say that the Obama team was not yet prepared to make public this departure from Bush-era policy. Rather than leave his secretary of state twisting in the wind, says one of the sources, Obama wound up repeating her formulation a few days later, touching off months of tension with the Israelis.

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The second flap occurred on November 1 in Jerusalem, where Clinton abruptly reversed course on settlements–this time saying that a proposal by the Netanyahu government that falls short of the freeze Obama has sought nevertheless amounts to an “unprecedented” concession by Israel. The formulation–which infuriated Arab leaders and made it seem that Obama had surrendered to Netanyahu–had not been endorsed by the White House, which was not pleased with the statement. The Times subsequently reported that even Clinton’s aides considered the remark poorly worded. “Our leading diplomat is very undiplomatic,” says a Democratic official with a Jewish organization in Washington. “Sometimes that’s helpful, sometimes it’s not.”

I take it all back, chump. She’s been a Genius as SOS!

Del Dolemonte on January 23, 2013 at 10:38 AM