In the last few weeks, a former president traveled to North Korea to negotiate the release of two imprisoned Americans; a U.S. senator flew to Burma to bargain for the release of yet another American; and envoys of the reclusive North Korean regime have come to the U.S. for talks with America’s former ambassador to the United Nations.
And throughout all of it, one question grows: Where is America’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton?
The missions by former President Bill Clinton and Virginia Sen. Jim Webb to secure the release of Americans held in North Korea and Burma detoured sharply around Clinton’s State Department.
And two diplomats from North Korea were meeting privately Wednesday with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson — a Clinton family pariah whose decision to back Barack Obama in last year’s presidential campaign earned him a barbed comparison to Judas.
These developments certainly have not curbed the narrative that Clinton has been marginalized in the Obama administration.
“She has been the most low-key secretary in recent times,” said Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “There does appear to be two different tracks of U.S. diplomacy at this time: One headed by Hillary Clinton and another headed by an array of different figures….
“What we have is an immensely confusing patchwork of foreign policy initiatives without any real central coherence.”
This “mercenary-style approach,” Gardiner said, enables U.S. adversaries to adopt a “divide-and-rule strategy” with the Obama administration.
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Notes:
Makes me wonder what she would have been like as President instead of Obama ?
Empty skirt versus empty suit ? Assuming those labels turn out accurate, and it’s still too soon to be sure that Obama is an empty suit!? ( One must avoid an ” Obama derangement syndrome ” on the right similar to the ” Bush derangement syndrome ” of the left, at least until this Presidency actually accomplishes something or fails to accomplish anything or worse does something proven incredibly stupid or wrong ! ).
As a general comment maybe a bit off topic: I wonder about the level of competence of 99% of politicians out there to run even a lemonade stand, much less a country, an economy or make any decisions based on objectively rational basis not poisoned by ideology, or just the desire to get re-elected !
Right Jean
“I wonder about the level of competence of 99% of politicians out there to run even a lemonade stand” … let alone our Health and over 40% of the economy.
Shrink government. They should not be running anything, they should only ensure we have lots of competitive choice … that in and of itself is an enormous responsiblity … but if they were to focus on giving us choice and stopped trying to get involved in the actual delivery of goods and services , we’d become a highly productive country.
Spot-on, nomdeblog!! I agree wholeheartedly!!