A Few Kind Words For Hillary

[Lord Jim]

Regular readers of this space will of course know that I've never been a great fan of Her Royal Clintoness...

In many respects an appalling person; like some sort of soap opera character....completely calculating, utterly ruthless, coldly cynical and relentlessly self interested...Susan Lucci on steroids...

She makes Lucretia Borgia look like Annette Funicello....


All of that having been said, I have to admit that at least by Democratic Party standards, she hasn't been a bad Secretary Of State....

I think it would be fair to say that Hillary has been the best Democratic Secretary of State since Dean Rusk...

Though admittedly we're talking about a pretty weak field...Her husband was one of those Presidents who wanted to be his own Secretary of State, so he chose mediocre sycophantic types to fill the role; Madelyn Albright, Warren Christopher, (Christopher was a man so lacking in effective presence that he earned the nickname "The Late Warren Christopher" almost two decades before he actually died a couple of months ago.)

Carter was another President who fancied himself a master of foreign affairs (who's bungling we are paying for to this very day) his Secretaries Of State (Cyrus Vance and Edmund Muskie) never amounted to much in the role either...(The only foreign policy adult in that sorry administration was Zbigniew Brezinski)

So, measured against that crowd, Hillary looks pretty good...(though I have to say that compared to Republican Secretaries of State over the same period; Henry Kissinger,Al Haig, George Shultz, James Baker, Lawrence Eagleberger, Colin Powell, Condalezza Rice...the only one she may out class is Haig)

All of that having been said...

I have to say that Hillary has really surprised me and has risen to the occasion.

She had no particular qualifications for the job; and it was obvious that Obama's decision to put her in that position was motivated purely by the political expediency of trying to unify his Party after a bruising nomination fight....

Frankly, I didn't think she'd last a year in the job. I certainly didn't think she'd earn Obama's trust to the point that she'd become the face of his Adminstration's foreign policy that she has become.

This is a tough time to be a Secretary of State, with all our financial problems dealing with the Chinese, working with the Europeans, and particularly with the historic upheaval in the Arab World....

When her husband was President, she had a reputation for being an unrealistic strident lefty on domestic policy;

But I have to say that today, where her brief is foreign policy, she seems to be one of the most hard-nosed realistic "adults" in this Administration.

I give her props for that.

[Big RR]

Jim--I can't argue with her on her effectiveness in the job--when has done fairly well in a job that i thought she might well bungle; the same for her stint as a NY senator. It seems to me that the more she distances herself from the counsel and influence of Bill, the better she does; he may well still bring about her downfall, but she seems to be smart enough to avoid that.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Each one avoiding the other seems to be working for them (and us).