Newsweek Cover Story: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

As some have noted, the full Newsweek story about Secretary Clinton is now available on their website, for those who don’t have a hard copy. I posted excerpts which were available last week, but here are some more snippets:

…Two days before, the secretary of state had flown in to Copenhagen by surprise to deliver a sweetener to help win over developing countries. In essence, it was a global bribe: $100 billion a year from rich nations by 2020 to help poorer countries cope with climate controls. It was political hardball, Hillary style, and it had helped to isolate Beijing. Now Obama was closing the deal Clinton had set up.

The two came away from Copenhagen with a partial triumph and a new sense of maturity—both about their relationship and their sense of how to lead. Clinton later called it one of “the most extraordinary 48 hours she’s spent in public life,” said her global-warming negotiator, Todd Stern—which is saying something for a woman who’s lived through political tumult for 18 years, including several presidential and senatorial campaigns. Clinton told NEWSWEEK that it was important for America to be seen taking the lead in tackling seemingly impossible problems, particularly in an era with rising new powers at the table, if only to show what the country stands for. “We can’t just walk out of the arena and leave these important decisions to somebody else because it’s messy, it’s difficult, it requires compromise. That is what you have to do on the world stage today,” she said. “We remain the strongest country in the world, but the way we exercise that leadership has changed dramatically.”

Copenhagen also provided further evidence that the sharp differences between Obama and Clinton over foreign policy on the campaign trail were, as many on both sides now acknowledge, largely political theater. In fact, their views of American power had never been that far apart. “We’re both, at bottom, problem solvers and practical, realistic people,” Clinton says now…

[snip]

Some of Obama’s most loyal aides have nothing but good things to say about their former political foe. “The bottom line is the president has always had a very deep respect for Secretary Clinton’s capabilities and contributions to the country,” says Denis McDonough, who is formally National Security Council chief of staff but plays a powerful role behind the scenes as a longtime Obama confidant. Obama was always one of her biggest fans, even in the immediate aftermath of the primaries, McDonough says, believing “that she made him that much better a candidate” and would do the same for his presidency. National-security adviser Gen. James Jones credits Clinton with being “one of the articulators of the overall strategy that we all adopted” on Iran and China.

[snip]

In the White House, it’s still possible to hear someone dismissing Hillary as a foreign-policy lightweight. “She has no real strategic vision,” says an NSC official. “But she’ll get done what she has to do. She’s the good little Methodist girl. In the end she’ll have her list of the nine or 10 things she has to do and check them off one by one.”

Associates bridle at such condescension, and so do many White House officials, including General Jones. Clinton’s former longtime policy chief, Neera Tanden, sees nothing to apologize for: “She definitely has lists. And she really feels a sense of obligation, duty, responsibility, as part of her general outlook; perhaps it is her Methodism. It’s part of who she is.” Clinton herself ridicules the criticism. “At the end of the day, have you solved the problem or haven’t you? Have you crossed it off the list or haven’t you?”

Clinton is now influencing policy more than she ever has, especially in close partnership with Defense Secretary Robert Gates….

I’m about to leave for work and don’t have much time to comment but I’m interested in what people think of the whole article. Carolyn left some good comments in the post below which I have moved to this post.

I will say though that the anonymous quote about her being a “good little Methodist girl”- it is questionable as to whether Newsweek should have included that without noting the source of the quote given it basically sounds more like catty criticism than meaningful analysis of her tenure thus far. That’s not to say that nobody can ever criticize her or that the media shouldn’t note any criticism but you have to wonder if Newsweek just included that quote to spice the article up. And ask yourself, would a critic of Secretary Gates provide such a condescending snippet to the media?

To Leslie Gelb and others who feel the need to run around bemoaning the fact that she’s not James Baker or Henry Kissinger, I say give it a rest. While Baker and Kissinger were arguably great Secretaries of State, who says that they have to serve as the only model for what is considered a successful Secretary of State going forward? Kissinger and Baker were long time confidants of the Presidents whom they served prior to taking office, which probably resulted in a different kind of relationship with the POTUS. But so what? Dick Cheney had tremendous access and influence but was that such a good thing? Just because Joe Biden isn’t running the country from a secret bunker like Cheney was doesn’t mean Biden has no influence.

I also have to wonder if Secretary Clinton’s focus on the status of women as part of her foreign policy vision, causes some of the long-time, entrenched foreign policy “experts” like Leslie Gelb (and others) to look down on this aspect of her work because lets be honest, the “boys” who have occupied the position of SOS have generally not given a damn about women and the role they play throughout the world and how that can and should effect our foreign policy. In other words, they may look down on “soft power.” In fact, it seems like the foreign policy “experts” really get very excited whenever Secretary Clinton is at her most hawkish- warning around about “crippling sanctions,” talking about defense umbrellas and nukes. All those things are important but there is more to diplomacy than simply reasserting America’s military might throughout the world.

Ok, gotta run- work to do. But like I said, I’d be interested in what you think.

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