Would Secretary Clinton be up for being President Obama's running mate in 2012, replacing Vice President Joe Biden?

An article this week in Politico, written by former Virginia Governor L. Douglas Wilder, an Obama supporter in 2008, states it would be "both needed change and audacious" if Obama were to select Clinton as his running mate for his 2012 reelection campaign. He praises Clinton, writing:

Clinton has been nothing but a team player who has earned good marks since being asked to serve as secretary of state. She has skillfully navigated the globe and been tough and commanding when the moment called for it (with Iran) and graceful and diplomatic when situations required (navigating complex relations with Russia, Pakistan and China). 

Wilder asks the rhetorical question, "Has she ended these 18 months with the stature of someone ready and able to be president were the moment to call for it?" He firmly responds, "The answer, unequivocally, is 'yes.'"

But, would Clinton want to be vice president? Based on what she has said when asked about any presidential ambitions for 2016, it seems like she's ready to transition out of government after serving as secretary of state. When asked by Tavis Smiley Reports in January about what she plans to do next, Clinton said:

"[T]here's so many things I'm interested in -- I mean, really going back to private life and spending time reading, and writing, and maybe teaching, doing some personal travel, not the kind of travel where you bring along a couple of hundred people with you. Just focusing on, on issues of women, girls, families, the kind of intersection between what's considered 'real politique' and real-life politics, which has always fascinated me."

And when Smiley asked her whether she plans to run for U.S. president again, she firmly responded:

"Absolutely not interested."

Also, as much as Clinton is giving her secretary-of-state job 110 percent -- not even appearing to ever suffer from jet lag -- she has hinted that keeping up such a demanding schedule is wearing her out and not something she wants to do in post-secretary life. She told Smiley:

"I'm honored to serve -- I serve at the pleasure of the president -- but it's a, it's a 24-7 job, and I think at some point, I will be very happy to [laughs] pass it on to someone else."

She told the Washington Post something similar:

"It is a really hard job … a 24-7 job," and "I feel the weight of it pretty significantly."

After Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, shadowed her through an exhausting day for Parade magazine, he wrote:

She has to be perpetually onstage. But what I think I glimpse beneath the unflagging smile and constant concentration is a very tired person -- tense, frustrated, but absolutely determined to make her tenure as Secretary of State a success and to accomplish important things.

Sounds like Clinton wants to transition to private life, still working on important issues such as empowerment of women and girls, but not having to be, as Gelb put it, "perpetually onstage."

In the Rolling Stone article that resulted in Gen. Stanley McChrystal's resignation today, Secretary Clinton is apparently the only nonmilitary person who gets McChrystal's respect. The Washington Post stated today:

Clinton comes off well in the article as the only non-military person who earns McChrystal's respect.

The Rolling Stone article itself states:

Only Hillary Clinton receives good reviews from McChrystal's inner circle. "Hillary had Stan's back during the strategic review," says an adviser. "She said, 'If Stan wants it, give him what he needs.' "

At yesterday's State Department press briefing, spokesman P.J. Crowley said Clinton has read the Rolling Stone article but not made any comment:

QUESTION: What does the Secretary make, if anything, of the fact that she appears to be the only one of the - in the senior national security team who comes out looking good, at least in McChrystal's view?
MR. CROWLEY: Well, I mean, she's - as did every member of the national security team during the course of the fall, she presented the President with her best advice on the strategy options. So did Ambassador Eikenberry. And she has read the article. Beyond that, she has not offered any particular comment.
QUESTION: She hasn't said anything to any of her staff that you're aware of?
MR. CROWLEY: No, she has not spoken to me about it. 

Given how much civilian-military cooperation is needed for nation-building in Afghanistan, let's hope Clinton gets along well with Petraeus. Her position on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is summarized by the Washington Post as such:

An active participant in the internal debates, Clinton worried about Pakistan remaining a haven for terrorism no matter how many troops were sent, but eventually joined with Gates and Mullen to push for a more robust force. In doing so, she bucked the advice of the U.S. ambassador, who reports to her.

For more about how Clinton was the only person singled out for praise in the Rolling Stone article, check out yesterday's post on this topic.

Secretary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are in harmony on many foreign-policy issues, according to a recent New York Times article. Tensions between the secretaries of state and defense have often been "epic" in previous administrations, but the two get along remarkably well, even talking Afghanistan policy over a long private dinner at the Blue Duck Tavern last week after their joint talk for CNN.

Over at FP's Shadow Government blog, Peter Feaver comments.

 

A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics telephone survey of 900 registered American voters conducted Sept. 29 and 30 found that 27 percent think Hillary Clinton would have been doing a better job than Barack Obama had she won last year's presidential election. On the other hand, 28 percent said she would be doing worse. The margin of error is 3 percentage points, so that's probably not a statistically significant difference. Overall, it appears people, regardless of their political affiliation, are more or less divided on who would be a better president, though Republicans skew a bit toward Clinton and Democrats a bit toward Obama.

Graphic created by Bradley Amburn, Foreign Policy

A Harris Interactive poll of 2,498 American adults conducted online from Aug. 10 to 18 found that of the Obama administration officials asked about, only Secretary Clinton received an overall positive rating:

• 51% positive (with 16% "excellent" and 36% "pretty good")
• 31% negative (with 19% "only fair" and 12% "poor")
• 18% not familiar enough to have an opinion

President Barack Obama was not included in the poll. Also, some of the percentages don't add up exactly due to rounding.

Here's how Clinton has done by month, with percentages in the order of positive, negative, and not familiar:

• August: 51%, 31%, 18%
• June: 47%, 34%, 19%
• May: 50%, 33%, 17%
• April: 51%, 32%, 17%
• March: 49%, 36%, 15%

Overall, pretty stable.

Photo: INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP/Getty Images

 

When Tina Brown wrote in belittling fashion that President Obama has Secretary Clinton in a burqa, it revealed just how difficult it is to comprehend how foreign policy gets made in the United States, writes Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum today.

Applebaum writes that Obama doesn't send detailed instructions to Clinton, controlling what she does -- that kind of stuff only happens in dictatorships, like North Korea. Rather, she is granted a lot of leeway in deciding how to engage the world. Obama doesn't force her to keep quiet; rather it's up to Clinton to engage the world as she sits fit.

And Clinton has been outspoken many times during her first six months. In April, she said Pakistan was "abdicating" to the Taliban; she made controversial statements about China and human rights in February; she discussed a possible "defense umbrella" in the Persian Gulf region. She has held town-hall meetings overseas and spoken in TV interviews both abroad and in the United States.

Ultimately, Applebaum concludes, the ball -- not the burqa -- is in Clinton's court: "It is up to her to tell us what she thinks is important, and why. If she hasn't done so yet, that isn't the president's fault."

Photo: SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images

 

One trait I admire about Secretary Clinton is her ability to not let criticism get her down. She has weathered so much meanness from her time as first lady to her tenure as a U.S. senator to last year's presidential campaign to her current post as secretary of state. Entire books have been written about what a terrible person she supposedly is. There's even a Hillary Clinton voodoo kit.

So, it's no surprise that, according to the New York Times, Clinton says she's amused and baffled by Tina Brown's Daily Beast piece that compares the secretary to a Saudi wife and declares, "It's time for Barack Obama to let Hillary Clinton take off her burqa." Clinton just laughs at that kind of stuff.

The Times also reports that Clinton's aides say her habit is to just "brush off" all the talk about how she's toiling in the shadows with a low profile. They said that keeping her "head down" is also the approach she used early in her Senate career.

Meanwhile, reports the Times, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told Clinton that he knew of no other time when there seemed to be less tension between the the State Department and White House. Further, Strobe Talbott -- a former deputy secretary of state who once wrote about marginalized secretaries of state for Time magazine -- told the Times, "There's a reflex assumption on the part of a lot of people that the secretary of state is going to be out there, on every conceivable issue. … But to do that on every conceivable issue is way too much, particularly when we have so many issues." (I should note that Talbott is friends with Clinton and her husband.)

Clinton is one smart woman. She knew what she was getting into when she accepted the secretary-of-state job. Dedicated to her position as her country's top diplomat, she's pushing forward, not letting her mean-spirited detractors get in the way.

Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

 

I have to depart for Secretary Clinton's speech soon, but before I leave I just want to bring to your attention Tina Brown's provocative Daily Beast piece, "Obama's Other Wife," in which she calls Clinton Obama's "great foreign-policy wife" and says Clinton has "an office wifehood of the Saudi variety."

The second paragraph declares:

It’s time for Barack Obama to let Hillary Clinton take off her burqa.

Brown praises Clinton, stating:

She has always cared more about the substance of work than its status trappings.

and

Policy is her meat and drink. On her State Department plane, Hillary is always eager to throw off her well-groomed public look and sit up front with no makeup, wearing sweats and her bookworm glasses, as she crunches her way through a big fat file of foreign-policy memos.

Brown concludes:

You could say that Obama is lucky to have such a great foreign-policy wife. Those who voted for Hillary wonder how long she'll be content with an office wifehood of the Saudi variety.

Photo: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

 

If Secretary Clinton had been president, the United States would have been talking tough about Iran at least two days earlier.

Clinton -- known for laying the smack down verbally -- spent two whole days urging President Obama to talk tough on Iran before he finally did, reports the Washington Times. And then when he did condemn the violence, he did so without telling her first, making it look like the State Department was "out of sync" with the White House.

According to the article, Clinton originally agreed that the U.S. response should be somewhat restrained to avoid creating the impression that the United States was meddling in Iran's internal affairs -- and because the U.S. government would most likely end up having to deal with Ahmadinejad later on regarding nuclear weapons.

But after 26-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan was shot on a Tehran street on June 20, Clinton decided it was time for tough talk (a position you all supported in last week's poll). She spent two days urging Obama to speak out, but he resisted. Then on June 23, without informing her first, he announced, "I strongly condemn these unjust actions."

Of course Obama is the president and doesn't need Clinton's permission to speak, but as the Washington Times article states, his tough words made the State Department look "out of sync" with the White House. Until an hour before Obama's news conference, the State Department was still speaking in restrained terms (saying it was "deeply concerned," etc.)

Maybe Obama will listen to Clinton's foreign-policy advice more carefully next time -- or at least give her a heads-up about any unexpected moves.

Photo: KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images

 

Here's a ridiculous piece by Dick Morris, former advisor to U.S. Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Bill Clinton: "The Incredible Shrinking Clintons."

Morris -- who clearly has something personal against the Clintons -- argues that President Obama brought Hillary and Bill Clinton into his "inner circle" in order to marginalize them. He explains the logic by quoting former President Lyndon Johnson: "I'd rather have [my rivals] inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in."

Granted, there might be some truth to this logic, and Secretary Clinton might appear less "marginalized" if she spoke on some of the Sunday morning talk shows. However, Morris's piece is filled with hyperbole.

For example, it states, "Hillary is reduced to announcing foreign aid packages for Pakistan while [Richard] Holbrooke does the heavy lifting." Yes, Clinton (the e-diplomat) has asked people to text "swat" to help Pakistanis, but she's also the bold woman who laid the smack down and declared that the Pakistani government was "abdicating" to the Taliban.

Morris also says about Secretary Clinton:

She doesn't look like a president in waiting; she's more like a senior staff member hoping to rise in the bureaucracy. No longer at the head of a movement or the symbol of rising women all over the world, she has faded into the State Department woodwork.

If Clinton is no longer the "symbol of rising women," then why did Vital Voices honor Clinton with its Global Trailblazer award this March?

Bizzarely, the piece says, "Bill Clinton has been asked to be a special envoy to Haiti. Yes, Haiti. … Obama gives him Haiti." From what I can tell, Bill Clinton is the United Nations special envoy to Haiti. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon -- not Obama -- named him for the position. Plus, anyone who has advised Bill Clinton ought to know that the Clintons have a special place in their hearts for Haiti.

Strangely, Morris also writes, "Bill can't even make money" (due to restrictions on his activities because Hillary is secretary of state). The New York Times Magazine just reported, however, that the former president is jetting around the world, picking up six-figure fees for his speeches.

"Shrinking Clintons"? Whatever. They're a 21st-century power couple.

Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

 

My colleague Laura Rozen over at The Cable posted a quote from a "plugged-in Washington Middle East hand" saying that the White House won't let Secretary Clinton on Sunday morning talk shows. Referring to Clinton and White House senior advisor David Axelrod, the post reads:

"The White House won't let her on TV on the Sunday morning talk shows," a plugged-in Washington Middle East hand observed. "Who is talking about foreign policy on those shows? Axelrod. Who is showing up at the meeting with Obama-Peres? Axelrod. They are controlling the message."

"They've never even had her even on Charlie Rose," he added. "You have not really seen the secretary of state in the U.S. media; you've seen her in the international media. Who is their main messenger on foreign policy?"

(An aide confirmed Clinton hadn't been on the Sunday talk shows since the campaign.)

An update to the post says:

White House and State Department officials wrote to strongly dispute that Clinton was being kept off the Sunday news talk shows. A White House official said Clinton is an "absolutely critical voice" in the effort to develop and communicate the administration's foreign policy.

The "plugged-in Middle East hand" also noted that the Obama administration did not send Clinton to the AIPAC conference. Instead Vice President Joseph Biden was sent. Steve Cohen, president of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, said:

"Biden is the person who is perceived as a very experienced foreign-policy hand who has a very solid relationship with Israel, but that relationship is solidly based on American strategic analysis," Cohen said. "And not affected so much by the Clinton experience of being a [former] New York senator."

(In the photo at top, Clinton, then a Democratic presidential hopeful, performs a comedy sketch with U.S. television personality Stephen Colbert during the taping of his comedy show The Colbert Report in Philadelphia on April 17, 2008.)

Photo: ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

As some of you know, President Obama and Secretary Clinton received a "3 a.m. phone call" (OK, it was actually 4:30 a.m.) in Prague on Sunday morning after North Korea launched a missile. (An April 6 Congressional Quarterly article I accessed on Nexis confirms that both received the call.)

Now here's an interesting nugget from an Associated Press analysis piece, "Hillary Warned There'd Be Days Like This." The article states:

Clinton, now Obama's top diplomat who no longer hawks the 3 a.m. campaign line, was traveling with the president. She worked the phones, and Obama issued the expected words of condemnation. Calls went out for the U.N. Security Council to convene.

In all fairness, Obama was working the phones too, consulting his top aides, but it looks like when the 3 a.m. calls come ringing, Clinton is right there, too, doing 3 a.m. diplomacy.

By and large, both the British and German papers today are delighted that Secretary Clinton's meetings with British Foreign Minister David Miliband and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier seem to herald a new day for transatlantic relations.

WIth Miliband, the agenda was largely the "special relationship" between the US and UK, Iran's nuclear ambitions, and peace in the Middle East.

The Guardian loves the fact that Britain scored a diplomatic coup:

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, lavishly praised the "special relationship" between the US and Britain after discussions in Washington yesterday with David Miliband, the first foreign minister to meet her in the new job....

British diplomats had played down the importance of whether Britain, France or Germany would be first to speak to the new administration but they were yesterday celebrating twin coups: Gordon Brown was the first European leader Obama called and Miliband became the first foreign minister to visit Clinton.

The Independent detected "bittersweet moments":

The two top diplomats gushed over each other, with Mr Miliband declaring he was "delighted" to be meet with Mrs Clinton exactly three months after Mr Obama was elected, two weeks after his inauguration and one full day after Mrs Clinton was formally sworn in. Whew. Their talks were "detailed, substantive and friendly", Mr Miliband recounted.

But was there a hint of regret that Hillary wasn't in the White House? As far as the Foreign Office is concerned, Barack Obama, is an inspiring but essentially blank sheet of paper.

And the Times seemed relieved that Clinton reassured Miliband that the U.S. wouldn't act rashly toward Iran:

Hillary Clinton offered David Miliband assurances yesterday that plans to re-engage with Iran would proceed one step at a time - and only after heeding concerns from Britain. 

With Steinmeier, the agenda focused on Afghanistan, Iran, and Germany-U.S. ties.

Deutsche Welle seems giddy about the fact that Steinmeier is on a first-name basis with the Secretary:

They already call each other by their first names.

 

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, looking forward to a warmer era of diplomatic relations with the United States under President Barack Obama, called the new top US diplomat "Madame Secretary Hillary" or simply, "Hillary," a sign of friendship for Germans, who often call each other by their last names even after decades.

 

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reciprocated by calling her German colleague "Frank." Indeed, the pair have known each other since the 1990s, when she was US first lady and Steinmeier was chief of staff to the previous German chancellor.

Der Spiegel, on the other hand, reported that Steinmeier's enthusiasm for the new administration (in juxtaposition to Angela Merkel, who has been noticeably more reserved when it comes to Obama) is a product of his desire to be Germany's next chancellor, and that yesterday showcased a bit of campaigning on this side of the pond:

The foreign minister, who is also the chancellor candidate for the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) in this year's German national election, waited no longer than the inauguration before making plans for his first visit with the new administration. Steinmeier, after all, is trying to mount a campaign in Germany that he hopes will help him cash in on Barack Obama's win and America's shift to the left. He wants to position himself with German voters as the country's chief Atlanticist and a passionate friend of the new American government....

 

During their joint press conference at the State Department, Steinmeier addressed his counterpart as "Dear Hillary" and spoke for a very long time -- a lot longer than she did. Steinmeier praised what he described as his "visit with friends" and said trans-Atlantic cooperation must not be suffocated by "routine." Later he raved about a "new freshness, a curiosity, a preparedness to discuss new issues." Clinton played along. 

Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

This morning, Hillary Clinton attended a White House ceremony to watch Barack Obama sign his first bill into law: the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act. That act reverses a 2007 Supreme Court decision that narrowed the statute of limitations on filing pay discrimination suits.

Hillary Clinton was one of the initial co-sponsors of the Senate legislation (later blocked by Republicans) that sought to change this decision and, in one of her few official acts before being confirmed as Secretary of State, signed on as an original co-sponsor again this year. She appeared with Lilly Ledbetter to rally for the legislation, spoke about the act on the floor of the Senate, and proclaimed its importance during her speech at the Democratic National Convention. She's no doubt delighted at the bill's success. Also in attendance: Nancy Pelosi and Michelle Obama.

Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images