Heard Around the Hillary-Sphere: Wednesday Afternoon Edition

Even though Secretary Clinton has no appointments today, there is still Hillary news!

The UK Telegraph has an article today that is being covered pretty much around the world- the situation with the possible release of the bomber responsible for the Lockerbie tragedy:

Mrs Clinton said it was ”absolutely wrong” to release Megrahi, adding: ”We are still encouraging the Scottish authorities not to do so and we hope that they will not.”
Megrahi – who has terminal prostate cancer – successfully dropped his appeal against conviction on Tuesday amid mounting speculation he could be moved to Libya within days on compassionate grounds.
Mrs Clinton has already called Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, to say Megrahi should serve out his sentence in Scotland.

After the bomber’s appeal hearing, she told US reporters: ”I just think it is absolutely wrong to release someone who has been imprisoned based on the evidence about his involvement in such a horrendous crime.”

Three appeal judges in Edinburgh heard Megrahi’s condition had worsened ”very considerably” in recent days.
Defence QC Margaret Scott said: ”Up-to-date medical reports from three eminent experts also concurred in the view that he has a very aggressive cancer, that his condition is grave and that the prognosis is extremely limited.”
She said the case met the guidelines for compassionate release and ”serious” health complications were ”certain to arrive” in the very near future for Megrahi, who was now very weak and in distress with severe pain.

”His absolute priority in the little time he has left is to spend it with his family in his homeland,” Ms Scott added.
”It’s the appellant’s belief that instructions to abandon his appeal will assist in the early determination of these applications.”

The successful bid to drop the second appeal against conviction removes one potential obstacle to the return of Megrahi – who was convicted in 2001 of the 1988 airliner bombing which killed 270.
Mr MacAskill cannot agree to return him to Libya under a prisoner transfer treaty if any legal proceedings are outstanding.

Tuesday’s ruling removes some red tape although a Crown appeal against Megrahi’s sentence is still outstanding.
Appeal judge Lord Hamilton said it was of the ”utmost importance” Scotland’s top law officer, Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini, made an early decision on whether she intended to insist on the appeal.
All 259 people on the Pan Am Flight 103 Boeing 747, and 11 people on the ground, were killed in Britain’s biggest terrorist atrocity.

Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond, in Aberdeen for a Cabinet meeting, said he would ”absolutely trust” his Justice Secretary to reach the right decision over Megrahi.

Mr Salmond said: ”There will be no consideration of international power politics or anything else, it will be taken on the evidence in the interest of justice.”

Laura Rozen reports on the swearing-in of a long-time Clinton ally, Ellen Tauscher, for Undersecretary of State for arms control and international security:

Just back from an 11-day trip to Africa and before meetings with Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and the White House and then heading off for vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton swore in her close ally, former Rep. Ellen Tauscher, as undersecretary of State for arms control and international security Monday in the State Department’s eighth floor Ben Franklin room. In attendance were National Security Advisor Gen. Jim Jones and his wife, long-time friends of Tauscher (whose new groom, Jim Cieslak, is, like Jones, a former Marine), along with Clinton’s special advisor on arms control and international security Robert Einhorn, Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance and Implementation Rose Gottemoeller, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns, and Assistant Secretary of State for Political and Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro.

Now that Tauscher’s in, she is expected to work closely with Clinton. “The fact that Secretary Clinton personally swore in the new Undersecretary is a testament to the very close relationship between these two veteran female politicians, a connection that goes beyond any formal bureaucratic lines of authority,” a nonproliferation hand in attendance said. It’s also “a reflection of the personal importance Secretary Clinton places on the broad issues of arms control and nonproliferation. Indeed, for all the recent musings over where Hillary Clinton can make her mark in this administration, forging progress on strengthening the global nonproliferation regime and securing Senate ratification of such key agreements like the START follow-on treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty can lay the foundation for a very strong [Clinton] legacy.”

More on North Korea and Secretary Clinton’s comments about President Clinton’s trip:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that information her husband brought back from North Korea has been “extremely helpful” by providing a window into what’s happening in the reclusive country.

But it didn’t change the Obama administration’s position on North Korea, which is under pressure from the U.S. and its allies to end its nuclear weapons program.

“Our policy remains the same. Our policy is consistent,” she said.

Clinton made the remarks at a State Department news conference with Colombian Foreign Minister Jaime Bermudez as President Barack Obama met with Bill Clinton about the former president’s mission to North Korea that won the freedom of two imprisoned American journalists.

In a brief statement, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama thanked Clinton for undertaking the mission and the former president “described the process.” Gibbs said the two spoke for 40 minutes in the West Wing’s situation room before Obama invited the former president to continue their conversation for another 30 minutes in the Oval Office.

“President Obama said he was gratified that the Americans had been safely reunited with their families,” Gibbs said.
The session was the second conversation between the two men on the North Korean mission, although the private meeting was the first in-person and in-depth debriefing between the current and former president. Bill Clinton also has met with National Security Council staff twice and his associates also have had extensive discussions with the NSC, State Department and other agencies about the trip…

After yesterday’s meeting with the Foreign Minister from Colombia, much has been made of the security agreement between the two countries, given Hugo Chavez’ recent statements suggesting the agreement demonstrates the United State’s imperialistic agenda in Latin America. While I’m not a big Hugo Chavez fan, I am not a big fan of the right-wing Colombian government of President Uribe either and I think there is a clear double standard where Colombia is concerned (as opposed to say, with Cuba or even Venezuela) given Colombia’s pitiful human rights record. While Colombia is officially a democracy, it is a tenuous one where the military and para-military have been the primary means of enforcing the law there.

Anyway, here is an article that highlights Secretary Clinton addressing some of the concerns that have been raised regarding the security agreement between our two nations:

The Obama administration is moving closer to a security agreement with Colombia that Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez said would fan “winds of war” in Latin America.

But Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, appearing with Colombian Foreign Minister Jaime Bermudez after their meeting in Washington on Tuesday, stressed that the U.S. will not be establishing bases in Colombia as part of the defense cooperation agreement.

“I want to be clear about what this agreement does and does not do,” Clinton said. “First, the agreement does not create U.S. bases in Colombia. It does provide the United States access to Colombian bases, but command and control, administration and security will be Colombia’s responsibility, and any U.S. activity will have to be mutually agreed upon in advance. The United States does not have and does not seek bases inside Colombia.

“Second, there will be no significant permanent increase in the U.S. military presence in Colombia,” Clinton added. “The congressionally mandated cap on the number of U.S. service members and contractors will remain and will be respected.”

The pact, she said, would focus on “working together to meet the challenges posed by narco-traffickers, terrorists and other illegal armed groups in Colombia.”

Chavez, who just announced plans to make his eighth visit to Iran early next month, has used the security agreement as pretext to build up his country’s defenses and buy more arms from Russia.

“It is my moral duty to warn that winds of war are blowing” in South America, Chavez said at a Union of South American Nations meeting last week. “This could lead even to war in South America.

“The announcement of the installation of seven military bases” in Colombia could “become a tragedy,” Chavez added at the meeting.

[snip]

Clinton was asked Tuesday about Chavez’s claims that the agreement was a sign of aggression.

“I believe that any fair reading of what it is we are discussing is about our continued commitment to assist Colombia,” Clinton told reporters. “It has nothing to do with other countries, and I only hope that people will actually take the time to understand that.”

And finally, this article was from yesterday and I meant to post it- a couple of people emailed it to me also- it’s more coverage of Hillary’s Africa trip and while some of the MSM coverage towards the end tended to focus on the least important aspects (the question from the college student, her statement about the 2000 election), we can’t forget that there was some very good coverage also:

She talked chickens with female farmers in Kenya. She listened to the excruciating stories of rape victims in war-torn eastern Congo. And in South Africa, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited a housing project built by poor women, where she danced with a choir singing “Heel-a-ree! Heel-a-ree!”
Clinton’s just-concluded 11-day trip to Africa has sent the clearest signal yet that she intends to make women’s rights one of her signature issues and a higher priority than ever before in American diplomacy.

She plans to press governments on abuses of women’s rights and make women more central in U.S. aid programs.
But her efforts go beyond the marble halls of government and show how she is redefining the role of secretary of state. Her trips are packed with town hall meetings and visits to micro-credit projects and women’s dinners. Ever the politician, she is using her star power to boost women who could be her allies.

“It’s just a constant effort to elevate people who, in their societies, may not even be known by their own leaders,” Clinton said in an interview. “My coming gives them a platform, which then gives us the chance to try and change the priorities of the governments.”

Clinton’s agenda faces numerous obstacles. The U.S. aid system is a dysfunctional jumble of programs. Some critics may question why she is focusing on women’s rights instead of terrorism or nuclear proliferation. And improving the lot of women in such places as Congo is complicated by deeply rooted social problems…

Last week I wrote about the need [in my opinion] to not let Secretary Clinton’s message in the Democratic Republic of Congo, fall by the wayside and off the media radar. You can check out that post here.

Oh, how could I forget this? I’m not even going to dignify that Dick Morris-inspired tripe but I’d encourage folks to go visit the link (Fox News) and tell them to give their tired propaganda a rest- I’ll be heading over there later myself.

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