The Washington Note Over-Loves The Hillary

(see below or click link for referenced posting)

Steve's gushing comments on Clinton read like a favor to someone more than informed commentary. Or (I hope) an intentionally ironic, over-saccharine homage designed as a dog whistle warning that this opine is forced.

I guess it's a harsh reality that to stay relevant and informative he has to avoid being frozen out of contact with heavyweight Beltway players who have huge egos and a sense of status and entitlement to match. They viciously prosecute their malicious tendencies towards anyone not playing their favorites and demand regular, periodic pronouncements of filialty to monitor who's toeing the line and, more importantly, pre-empt the possibility of critical articles.

Steve can't exactly slam Hillary later on after such an ode without looking foolish. This insistence on pronouncements is a lethally effective trapping strategy perfected by AIPAC...

For Hillary - she can control her mouth but not her enormously inflated head and it will burn her on the intricate, fickle, international stage when she starts spouting off with her "views". As "wife" she got a free pass while globetrotting. There's no advantage in attacking a person with no position.

But now every diplomat and foreign office on Earth will be watching to see her slip to exploit it for leverage. I foresee a long trail of global Hillary gaffes over a period of months ending in her being dragged from her post screaming, spitting and kicking, screaming "Internal Conspiracy".



Madame Secretary

Monday, Dec 01 2008, 8:51AM

Hillary Clinton is going to add yet another chapter to her incredibly fascinating life -- lawyer, feminist, first lady, healthcare diva, U.S. senator, and now secretary of state at a time when America's foreign policy and national security positions are dramatically eroded.

I think the Clinton we saw during the campaign will give herself, her views and approach to complex national security challenges a "makeover." She's going to push women's rights, democracy, human rights, poverty reduction and the like -- but I think she is going to be party to a realist-tilting, crafty Obama-led, Bob Gates-designed, Clinton-out-front process to get a strategic shift in U.S. foreign policy. We applaud that.

James Glassman, her undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, has some ideas on how to move her agenda forward -- and she should consider using a lot of the tools that Glassman and his team are developing.

-- Steve Clemons

Uh.... (shudder)