Clinton Needs A New Spin Master
Portraying Clinton’s African safari as a “success” will forever reign as the most unbelievable spin job in history. It would have been far better to say nothing than to bring more publicity to what was a disastrous trip. Besides being sent on a meaningless journey to countries that most Americans never heard of, Clinton had to put up with insulting questions from her hosts as well as being publicly upstaged by her own husband.
Here’s the official spin job - believe it or not!
Clinton’s Africa Trip Is Viewed as a Success
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apparently accomplished what she set out to do on her trip to Africa. She pressed governments from Kenya to Nigeria to Libera for reform.
She highlighted the plight of women in Congo, meeting with rape victims and hearing their stories.
But the trip did not go entirely as planned.
Media headlines instead focused on Clinton’s more controversial remarks on tangential issues, and America’s top diplomat found herself commenting more on someone who was not even there: her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
As Secretary Clinton embarked on the 11-day, seven-country swing through the continent, President Clinton departed for North Korea on what was described by officials as a “humanitarian” mission to retrieve two American journalists being held there.
President Clinton’s successful trip was a media coup, one that overshadowed his wife’s arrival in Africa. In interviews and press conferences soon after her arrival, reporters peppered her for information about her husband’s trip as the rescue dominated headlines around the world.
The comments, and video, ricocheted around the world, prompting commentators and analysts to wonder if the secretary was withering under her husband’s shadow. She had just spent the past month fighting rumors of her marginalization in the Obama administration while nursing a broken elbow.
At a town hall event in Abuja, Nigeria, she compared the 2000 U.S. election Florida recount to the allegedly rigged election in Nigeria.
The comparison drew sharp criticism from conservatives in Washington, who balked at the notion that Clinton would compare a United States election to one in Nigeria marred with missing ballot boxes, inflated voter counts, and shooting of voters at polling stations. Again, the headlines were concerned less with governance in Nigeria and more with whether Clinton made yet another misstep.
Perhaps if Hillary had simply brought Bill Clinton along with her, the trip might have been a real “success”.
Hillary’s Meaningless Journey
After embarking on a largely symbolic trip to Africa, Hillary reached the breaking point as her African trip was marginalized by her own husband’s trip to North Korea.
It has to be Hillary Rodham Clinton’s worst nightmare. After missing her big chance to become president, she becomes secretary of state — arguably the most powerful woman in the world — and still, she’s living in her superstar husband’s shadow.
David Rothkopf, a foreign policy expert and author who served in the Clinton administration, says the secretary’s frustrated reaction — “My husband is not the secretary of state; I am” — was the breaking point for a woman who has been largely overshadowed throughout the first six months of President Obama’s administration.
Even as Clinton has been doing the tough talking to such international menaces as North Korea and Iran, playing bad cop to Obama’s good cop, she has done so in relative obscurity, given her star stature. The media coverage of Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state has focused more on her personality rather than on her work as international peacemaker and dealmaker, Rothkopf notes.
“Hillary gets People magazine treatment,” he says. “It must be frustrating for her.”
Clinton was visibly angry when a student at a town hall meeting in the Democratic Republic of Congo asked her, referring to a Chinese economic development contract with Congo, “What does Mr. Clinton think, through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton?”
“Wait, you want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not the secretary of state; I am,” Clinton replied, seething. “You ask my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I’m not going to be channeling my husband.”
Mistranslated or not, the suggestion that Mr. Clinton’s opinion mattered more than Secretary Clinton’s was the final straw in what apparently has been an escalating source of frustration for her. As Rothkopf says, “It’s tough being the most powerful woman in the world.”
How Obama Neutered Hillary
The Secretary of State may be starting to realize that she is on the losing end of a brilliant strategy by the President to contain and marginalize her as a future political opponent. Clinton has been involved in no matters of substance as Secretary of State. Although bravely trying to portray the African trip as being important, it was largely irrelevant. For the President to send her husband on a high publicity trip to North Korea as she was trudging through a meaningless African safari was the final breaking point for Hillary. Why would the President send Bill Clinton to North Korea instead of his Secretary of State?? The obvious message to Hillary was hard to miss.
As a senator from New York, Clinton could have had major input and influence on the serious domestic issues affecting the Country. By convincing Hillary to become Secretary of State, the President has effectively removed her from domestic issues. The vast majority of Americans would not even be able to identify what continent the countries she visited are located on. The vast majority of voters are more concerned about domestic issues than foreign policy. Clinton’s official role precludes her from being directly involved in issues that matter most to voters. The question at this point is what can Hillary do about it?
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