Hillary

Anonymous · February 2009

I am wondering what Hillary Clinton is thinking about all this. Now that she is SOS, she cannot speak out. I wonder how she would have tackled this crisis!

She had a vision of health care and that included getting all the medical records online so it would be easier for the patient and caregivers. However, she never supported anything like what Dashle has slipped into the bill.

I sure was hoping for Hillary to win the primaries so I could vote her in as President.

Now that she is SOS, we haven't really heard from her. I hope she likes her new job but I wish she had refused it. I wish she was in the Senate right now fighting for health care reform that we need, not hidden reform that can prove disastrous for us.

Maybe 2012 but I doubt that's even possible since she probably had to swear allegiance to Obama. Maybe we can hope for 2016.

Anonymous · February 2009

Does it seem to anyone else that Hillary is not doing much as SOS. I mean they have her on trips abroad but where is the news coverage? Why isn't she doing any of the important stuff -- like trying to talk to Israel or the Palestinians? Or why did Kissinger go to Russia to negotiate instead of Hillary?

It seems to me that Hillary is purposely being kept quiet and out of the limelight. And that's sad. This woman really has worked hard (and suffered much under the cad of a husband) and now she is kept in the back room.

HopingforaCure · February 2009

Hiya. I don't think she's being kept out of the limelight on purpose. I just think everyone is focused on the economy at the moment.

Clinton Says US Could 'Reconsider' European Missile Defense Plan

By David Gollust, State Department, 10 February 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the Obama administration might reconsider plans for a missile defense system in Europe, if Iran stopped what U.S. officials believe is a drive for nuclear weapons. Clinton met with Czech Republic Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, whose government - along with Poland - has agreed to host the system.

The Obama administration has stopped short of fully embracing the missile defense program that was avidly pursued by the Bush White House, with the Obama team citing concerns about its technical viability.

In her joint press appearance with her Czech Republic counterpart, Secretary Clinton reiterated those concerns, while also suggesting the program could be shelved if Iran halts its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Clinton expressed gratitude to both the Czech Republic and Poland for working with the United States in what she framed as an effort to dissuade and deter Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons and a related long-range missile project.

She said the decisions on timing and deployment of the system are "largely technical matters" and said Iranian behavior would be a key factor in whether the program ultimately goes forward.

"If we're able to see a change of behavior on the part of the Iranians with respect to what we believe to be their pursuit of nuclear weapons, then you know, we will reconsider where we stand. But we are a long, long way from seeing such evidence of any behavior change," she said.

Clinton noted an assertion by Vice President Joe Biden in a policy speech in Munich Saturday that the United States will continue efforts on missile defense provided the technology is proven to work and it is cost effective.

Mr. Biden also said the United States will continue consulting on the matter with NATO and with Russia, which has opposed the program as a threat to its strategic deterrence.

Under questioning Tuesday, Clinton reiterated the Obama administration's interest in dialogue with Iran, following an assertion Tuesday by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that his government welcomes talks with Washington based on "mutual respect."

The Secretary said there is an opportunity for Iran's hard-line government to "unclench its fist" and begin a serious and responsible dialogue but also linked that prospect to the Iranian nuclear program.

"We still persist in our view that Iran should not obtain nuclear weapons, that it would be a very unfortunate course for them to pursue," Clinton said. "And we hope that there will be opportunities in the future for us to develop a better understanding of one another, and to work out a way of talking that would produce positive results for the people of Iran."

President Obama said at his news conference late Monday he is looking for opportunities to engage with Iran while acknowledging that years of mistrust between the two countries will be hard to overcome.

Anonymous · February 2009

They probably have her on trips abroad because she doesn't agree with them. If she's smart...she'll keep her mouth shut...ride the tide for the next 4 years and get the hell outta Dodge!

Anonymous · February 2009

Well, I hope so, I really liked her. I also liked that Bill took advantage of his good luck and played the cards well to all our benefit -- after Reagan and Gorbachev (spelling?) ended the Cold War, Bill reduced our military. Cut, cut, cut.

PS ... I just want this to be about Hillary, not bashing Obama, unless she says something, which she won't, so if there are any Hillary supporters or Clinton watchers out there.... post away.

I sure would have liked to see what it would have been like if Pelosi and Hillary were "ruling" together. Boxer's daughter married into the Rodham family, so I am sure there's not too much bad blood there.

marshakb · February 2009

I agree, Hillary had health care as one of her top interests. I would much rather have her in the Senate. As one with stage iv bc, the wording in the stimulus is extremely bothersome.

Anonymous · February 2009

Marsha, for now, it won't effect those with private insurance and I think the dr's right at the beginning would not be keen at sending stage 4 gals home to die!!

Anonymous · February 2009

See, I am not crazy, here's an article just today ... saying her role seems to be ceremonial. Lots of "special envoys" being appointed. I thought it was odd but I am not the only one!

Hillary's incredible, shrinking role
By Dick Morris
Posted: 02/09/09 06:23 PM [ET]

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is finding that her job description is dissolving under her feet, leaving her with only a vestige of the power she must have thought she acquired when she signed on to be President Obama's chief Cabinet officer.

Since her designation:

• Vice President Biden has moved vigorously to stake out foreign policy as his turf. His visit to Afghanistan, right before the Inauguration, could not but send a signal to Hillary that he would conduct foreign policy in the new administration, leaving Hillary in the role of backup.

• Richard Holbrooke, the former Balkan negotiator and U.N. ambassador, has been named special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He insisted on direct access to the president, a privilege he was denied during much of the Clinton years.

• Former Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine), negotiator of the Irish Peace Accords, was appointed to be the administration's point man on Arab-Israeli negotiations.

• Samantha Power, Obama's former campaign aide, who once called Hillary a "monster," has been appointed to the National Security Council (NSC) as director of "multilateral affairs."

• Gen. James L. Jones, Obama's new national security adviser, has announced an expansion of the membership and role of the NSC. He pledges to eliminate "back channels" to the president and wants to grow the NSC's role to accommodate the "dramatically different" challenges of the current world situation.

• Susan Rice, Obama's new United Nations ambassador, insisted upon and got Cabinet rank for her portfolio, and she will presumably also have the same kind of access to Obama that she had as his chief foreign policy adviser during the campaign.

So where does all this leave Secretary of State Clinton?

While sympathy for Mrs. Clinton is outside the normal fare of these columns, one cannot help but feel that she is surrounded by people who are, at best, strangers and, at worst, enemies. The competition that has historically occupied secretaries of State and national security advisers seems poised to ratchet up to a new level in the current administration.

Hillary's essential problem is that she is an outsider in the current mix. She was the adversary in the campaign, and Rice and Powers - at the very least - know it well, having helped to run the campaign that dethroned her. Can they - and she - be devoid of bitterness or at least of normal human trepidation? Not very likely.

The fact is that the power of the secretary of State is not statutory, nor does it flow from the prestige of the post's occupant. Former Gen. Al Haig, once supreme commander of NATO and chief of staff to President Nixon, found that out when he was undercut as secretary by the White House troika of Mike Deaver, James Baker and Ed Meese. Bill Rogers, Eisenhower's attorney general and Nixon's California confidant, found himself on the outs from the moment he became secretary of State, with Henry Kissinger soaking up all the power through his direct access to Nixon as national security adviser.

The power of the secretary of State flows directly from the president. But Hillary does not have the inside track with Obama. Rice and Powers, close advisers in the campaign, and Gen. Jones - whose office is in the White House - all may have superior access. Holbrooke and Mitchell will have more immediate information about the world's trouble spots.

So what is Hillary's mandate? Of what is she secretary of State? If you take the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan out of the equation, what is left? One would have to assume that the old North Korea hands in the government would monopolize that theater of action. What, precisely, is it that Hillary is to do? The question lingers.

And for this she gave up a Senate seat?

mke · February 2009

I too wish that she had stayed in the senate. There she could have been a voice for some health care reform which the US is in dire need of.

vivre · February 2009

I think Hillary made a huge mistake taking the SOS job. What was she thinking? Bama got rid of his competition in one sly move. He got her out of the senate, where she might have been able to launch a campaign against him, and he can fire her as SOS any time he wants. I thought Hillary was a smart cookie and I cannot for the life of me figure out why she took this job.

Anonymous · February 2009

I was a Hillary supporter and wanted her to be president for many different reasons. I'm glad Obama chose her and I think she will do a wonderful job.

Achi

Anonymous · February 2009

Achi, I think she got the shaft from his people... I think that she would do a terrific job as SOS but as you can see, there are so many special envoys, she is disappearing out of the limelight. I hope she has a chance to shine.

Joanna1 · February 2009

I was a Hillary supporter and reluctantly moved to Obama because in the end- there was really no choice. McCain was too old- his ideas were too old- and frankly, Palin scared me! I am impressed with Obama's calmness...his seemingly ability to smile and not be caustic to those who use hateful rhetoric on him and his ideas.

I think Hillary made the choice to be Secretary of State because she felt she had the skills- the status, and the interest to do a good job for this country. When I read or hear comments by Dick Morris.... I have to laugh. I do not see him as a credible commentator. He is like a vulture..circling for any tidbit to spin into a story. He sells his skills (what they may be) to the highest bidder and talks a good story.

Hillary was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Although, her personal worth has soared- I think she still remembers what it like to grow up - live in middle America in the middle class.

HopingforaCure · February 2009

Hillary's been all over the news with her tour of Asia. Hope it's a success! (I voted for her in the Primaries).

Anonymous · February 2009

............................................

Anonymous · February 2009

She's been promoted into oblivion ... in two years he can fire her ... I feel sorry for her. I wish she was in the Senate fighting for a decent health care program that could work.

Anonymous · February 2009

Clinton covers the bases on Tokyo visit

In Japan, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton answers a student's question about playing baseball with men on the team. Clinton touches on topics across the spectrum

.By Paul Richter Los Angeles Times February 17, 2009

Reporting from Tokyo - The young woman with pigtails asked in a tiny voice how to get along on a baseball team with lots of bigger, more powerful men.

"I've played a lot of baseball," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the woman and the other young people in an audience at the University of Tokyo. "I've played with a lot of boys. The most important advice is to do what's true to yourself."

Tuesday's 45-minute "town hall" meeting at the university gave Clinton a chance to project a softer America during her first road trip as the country's chief diplomat. She avoided the phrase "war on terror," which was standard terminology during the Bush years. And she touched on topics across the spectrum, from climate change to families, global poverty to the need for healthy habits among the elderly. And, of course, baseball.

Clinton faced some wariness in Japan as she tried to distance herself from her Republican predecessors. Bill Clinton's presidency is unfavorably remembered by parts of Japan's political class for a perceived pro-China tilt at Japan's expense. And there was some grumbling during Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign last year when she published an article on her foreign affairs priorities that dealt with China in detail but mentioned Japan only in passing.

As secretary of State, Clinton has already signaled a subtle break from Bush's approach to Japan. With the governing Liberal Democratic Party badly weakened by a crumbling economy, she met with opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa, head of a party whose commitment to the U.S.-Japan alliance was viewed with suspicion during the Bush years.

But parts of the Bush legacy cannot be easily dismissed. Clinton spent about 30 minutes with the families of Japanese who were abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and '80s, a highly emotional issue in Japan. Tokyo insists that the fate of the abductees, as they are known, must be resolved before there can be any normalization of relations with North Korea.

The Bush administration's sympathy on the abductees issue left Japanese leaders wrong-footed when the U.S. then struck a deal with North Korea on its nuclear program, an accord that led Washington to remove the country last year from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

In their meeting, the families urged Clinton to return North Korea to that list as a means of pressuring the regime to provide information on what happened to their loved ones. But American officials said Clinton, though sympathetic, made no commitments.

charis · February 2009

Do any of you ever go to read the Hillbuzz guys ...... they are Hillary worshipers! These guys are a riot!!! Love.those.guys.

HopingforaCure · February 2009

From the International Herald Tribune:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton posing for photos with students from the elementary school where President Barack Obama studied at Halim airport in Jakarta on Wednesday. (Pool photo by Tatan Syuflana)

Clinton makes big detour to Indonesia

By Mark Landler Published: February 18, 2009

JAKARTA: Reaching out to the world's most populous Muslim country and the boyhood home of her new boss, President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Indonesia on Wednesday to pay tribute to its hard-won political freedoms.

"Indonesia has experienced a great transformation in the last 10 years," she said, hearkening back to the Asian financial crisis of 1998, which led to the ouster of Suharto, its autocratic president, and set Indonesia on the path to becoming a robust, if somewhat confusing, democracy.

"If you want to know if Islam, democracy, modernity, and women's rights can coexist, go to Indonesia," she said at a dinner of academics, journalists, environmentalists and women's rights advocates.

Clinton said her decision to come to Jakarta - a detour of nearly 7,000 miles, or more than 11,200 kilometers, between stops in Japan and South Korea - was also motivated by a desire to recognize the importance of Southeast Asia, a region that the Obama administration believes was neglected by the administration of President George W. Bush.

To underline that point, she announced that the United States would begin the process of acceding to a treaty with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. That would bind it closer to the 10-member group, which includes Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

jader · February 2009

I think Hillary is so pretty.

HopingforaCure · February 2009

I've always thought Bill was pretty attractive Laughing

jader · February 2009

He maybe that, but morally reprehensible. Good president, bad person.

Anonymous · February 2009

.....

jader · February 2009

From www.NoLimits.org

Hillary Clinton and Sheila Jackson Lee joined forces to create legislation for a statue of Sojourner Truth to be commissioned and installed in the US Capitol - the first black woman to be immortalized in this way

Sojourner Truth was an extraordinary American hero, and thanks to the work of Hillary Clinton in the Senate and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee in the House, Sojourner will finally be recognized with a statue in the Capitol - the first African American woman to be so honored!

Born into slavery as one of the youngest of thirteen children of James and Elizabeth in Ulster County, New York, in 1797, Sojourner Truth's given name was Isabella Baumfree. As almost all of her brothers and sisters had been sold to other slave owners, some of her earliest memories were of her parents' stories of the cruel loss of their other children.

In 1817, the New York State Legislature passed a Gradual Emancipation Act, which granted freedom to those enslaved who were born before July 4, 1799. Unfortunately, however, this law declared that many men, women and children could not be freed until July 4, 1827, ten years later. While still enslaved and at the demand of her then owner, John Dumont, Isabella married a man named Thomas, who was also enslaved and with whom she had five children.

As the expected date of her release approached, Isabella learned that Dumont was planning to keep her enslaved, even after the Emancipation Act went into effect. In 1826, she left the Dumont plantation with her infant child Sophia, leaving behind her husband and other children, who were not legally free until they had served as bound servants into their twenties. She discovered that a member of the Dumont family had sold her youngest son Peter, then only five years old, to a plantation owner in Alabama. Isabella believed the sale of her son Peter was illegal under New York law. As one of her many courageous actions, Isabella went court to file suit and won his return.

In 1843, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth - her name for a traveling preacher, one who speaks the truth - and left New York. She traveled throughout New England, where she met and worked with abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, and Frederick Douglass. Her life story, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave, written with the help of friend Olive Gilbert, was published in 1850.

While traveling and speaking in states across the country, Sojourner Truth met many women abolitionists and noticed that although women could be part of the leadership in the abolitionist movement, they could neither vote nor hold public office. It was this realization that led Sojourner to become an outspoken supporter of women's rights.

In 1851, she addressed the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, delivering her famous speech "Ain't I a Woman?" The applause she received that day has been described as "deafening." From that time on, she became known as a leading advocate for the rights of women. She became one of the nineteenth century's most eloquent voices for the cause of anti-slavery and women's rights.
By the mid-1850s, Truth had earned enough money from sales of her popular autobiography to buy her own home. After the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 was issued, she worked in Washington as a counselor and educator through the National Freedman's Relief Association and the Freedmen's Hospital for those who had been enslaved. During the 1872 Presidential election, she attempted to vote, but was turned away at the polling place. Despite these and other challenges, until her death in 1883, Sojourner Truth continued to fight for justice for women and African Americans.

Introducing the Sojourner Truth legislation, Hillary said: "I am proud that finally a memorial to Sojourner Truth will take its rightful and permanent place in the heart of our representative government, the United States Capitol. For generations to come, visitors to our nation's capitol will learn about her courage, perseverance and historic contribution in the face of incredible hardship. This is a fitting and long overdue tribute to a woman who deserves to be honored as a true American hero."

During Black History Month, Women's History Month, and throughout the year, I hope each of us will carry a little bit of Sojourner Truth in our hearts and souls as she was clearly a woman who embodied the belief that there are no limits to what is possible.

sccruiser · February 2009

It's certainly way past time for a statue of Sojourner Truth. I believe she was a woman before her time--so far ahead of many others. Imagine what someone like her could accomplish today!

We need more women like this at the top levels in our business and government administration. I am so glad Hillary is supporting this.

Yeah, she does look so pretty in the photo with the elementary children in Jakarta. Wonder what they thought? Too bad the journalists don't interview them and give us more than a sound bite in the news. We can learn so much from children if we just stop and listen.

Hope your evening is everything you want it to be!

grace

Hillary

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