Friday’s Hillary’s last day as Secretary of State and apparently politicians on both sides of the aisle are applauding her tenure and praising her accomplishments.
As for me, I honestly didn’t think she did very much at all for the past four years except travel extensively which I assumed was her way of avoiding Bill while taxpayers picked up the colossal tab for her and her entourage.
But, then again, since I really didn’t pay much attention to her, I could have been wrong and perhaps she really did accomplish something. So this morning I Googled her job performance and found an interview on Real Clear Politics from yesterday January 27, 2013, citing an interview in which Ed Wallace asked Brit Hume, both of Fox News, what he thought about her tenure.
Wallace began by saying “Here's some of the points that have been brought up, some of her accomplishments. She helped assemble the bombing campaign in Libya to topple Muammar Qaddafi. She helped assemble the coalition that imposed the toughest sanctions ever on Iran. And, she established diplomatic ties with Burma.”
Then Wallace went to ask, “Brit, how do you rate Hillary Clinton's performance, record as our top diplomat?”
I include Hume’s reply in total because I absolutely couldn’t do better myself if I tried for six months. Here’s what he said:
“I think those examples you cited would add up to a case for her competence. They do not add up to a case for greatness, after all, the groundwork on Burma had been done by the previous administration. And the administration properly followed through on it. You look across the world, now at the major issues. Are Arabs and Israelis closer to peace? How about Iran and North Korea and their nuclear programs? Have they been halted or seriously set back? Has the reset with Russia, which she so famously introduced with the photo-op in Moscow with the reset button, have they lead to a new and more cooperative relationship? Is there a Clinton doctrine that we can identify that she has articulated and formed as secretary of state?
He went on to ask,”Are there major treaties that she has undertaken and negotiated through to a successful conclusion? I think the answer to all those questions is that she has not. And those are the kinds of things that might mark her as a great secretary of state. She has certainly been industrious. She has visited 112 countries. Her conduct as secretary of state has been highly dignified. She does her homework. There have been no gaffes or blunders. So I think she has been a capable and hard working secretary of state, but I think the case for her being a great secretary of state is exceedingly weak.”
So, thanks to Brit, there we have it. And if you boil it all down it still seems to me that, except for excessive traveling, she really didn’t do much at all. And considering the huge number of bucks our nation pays to keep peace in the world, she probably could have achieved the same results by setting up conference calls with foreign recipients, telling them to shape up or we’ll cut them off financially.
But, then again, I guess there’s a bright side to her tenure after all. Because the body count in Arkansas was somewhere around fifty questionable deaths of folks close to Bill’s administration as I recall. But Hillary’s body count is only four in Benghazi. Therefore, it seems to me that perhaps she really did an excellent job if the basis for measurement is her cost in American lives.
That’s it for today folks.
Adios
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