Hillary Puffing Her Foreign Policy Experience

[Vinca]

From the Washington Post -

The Facts
It is true that Hillary visited Northern Ireland more times than Bill. By my count, she went there six times between 1995 and 2000, while he went four times. But she accompanied her husband as first lady on those four occasions, so they were hardly "independent" visits. (She would sometimes fly in a day early to give a lecture.) She made two visits by herself to the province, in May 1999, when she was the keynote speaker to a women's conference, and a 12-hour trip in October 1997, when she gave a lecture at the University of Ulster.

These visits provide a useful insight into Clinton's first lady experience, and how helpful it will be to her if she makes it all the way back to the White House as president. I just spoke to Senator George Mitchell, the Clinton administration's leading Northern Ireland peace negotiator, who said that Hillary was "not involved directly" in the diplomatic negotiations that led to the landmark April 1998 Good Friday agreement on power-sharing. On the other hand, Mitchell credits Clinton with taking an intelligent interest in the issues and getting acquainted with many of the key players.

"She was very much involved in encouraging the emergence of women in the political process in northern Ireland, which was a significant factor in ultimately getting an agreement," Mitchell told me. Mitchell believes that Clinton's time in the White House enabled her to become "personally acquainted" with world leaders, which will help her if she becomes president.

Chris Thornton, a political reporter for the Belfast Telegraph, said that Hillary Clinton's visits to northern Ireland contributed to the "mood music" that made an eventual settlement possible, but were hardly key to reaching an agreement. "Would we have reached a settlement without that kind of stuff? Yes. Would we have got one without the intervention of Bill Clinton and George Mitchell? No."

Hillary is making a lot more of her Northern Ireland role on the campaign trail than she did in her memoir "Living History." As the Boston Globe recently noted, her stories of bringing Protestant and Catholic women together have become more dramatic with each retelling. The claim that she brought Catholics and Protestants together "for the first time" seems dubious. This would not be the first time that she has mixed up her chronology.

The Pinocchio Test
Hillary Clinton seems to be overstating her significance as a catalyst in the Northern Ireland peace process, which was more symbolic than substantive. On the other hand, she did play a helpful role at the margins, by encouraging organizations like Vital Voices, a women's group that takes a stand against extremism. One Pinocchio for exaggeration.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/01/clinton_and_northern_ireland.html

The Clinton campaign has provided various news clips to support Hillary Clinton's claim during last night's debate about "negotiating with governments like Macedonia to open their border again, to let Kosovar refugees in." The news articles make clear that Clinton visited Albanian refugee camps in Macedonia on May 14, 1999, during the NATO bombing war against Serbia. Macedonia had closed its borders the previous week, in order to stem the flow of Albanian refugees from Kosovo. The Macedonian government reopened the border on May 13, the day before Clinton toured the camps. According to this CNN report, only a few stragglers crossed the border.

Clearly, Clinton's visit to Macedonia helped focus even more international attention on the country and the refugee crisis that resulted from the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Albanians from Kosovo by the Serbian authorities. According to a May 16 Chicago Tribune report cited by the Clinton campaign, Clinton announced the "release of the first $ 2 million in a $ 21 million economic development package for Macedonia" at a meeting with Macedonian government leaders.

The question is whether Clinton personally negotiated the deal with the Macedonian government--or U.S. diplomats used her forthcoming visit as an additional incentive to persuade the Macedonian authorities to re-open the border. The sequence of events--first the border reopening, followed by Clinton's visit to the camps and her meeting with Macedonian government leaders--points to the second scenario.

This issue may seem trivial but it addresses the question of the nature of Clinton's White House experience. Was she the traditional First Lady or was she almost a co-president with Bill, helping to bring peace in Northern Ireland and negotiating with foreign governments? A truthful answer is somewhere in between. As a candidate, she has naturally tried to focus public attention on the trips she made to places like China, Northern Ireland, and the Balkans, and her meetings with foreign leaders. She claimed at one point that she was "intimately involved" in the Northern Ireland peace process. The record shows that she took an intelligent interest in all these issues, addressing conferences and meeting with victims of war, but did not get involved in diplomatic negotiations in any meaningful way. Her role was more symbolic than substantive.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/01/democratic_debate_jan_30_2008.html

[leftofcool]

1. Being influential

in any diplomatic process is a good role and does qualify as experience. I don't know that anyone has to actually be a key player to help get the job done. And yes, I would say the same thing about Obama.

[democrattotheend]

2. I would agree that it is valuable experience

But I don't think it qualifies as a 3 AM crisis phone call.

[Vinca]

3. To hear her tell it, she was the proximate cause of an agreement

and that's just not true. If Hillary would release the "First Lady" papers, it probably would come to light she did little more than the traditional First Lady duties.

[leftofcool]

4. But that's politics

and I would expect both sides to pad the resume, so to speak. It's a job interview.

[State the Obvious]

5. How many of those foreign leaders are STILL foreign leaders?

Leadership changes. Many of those leaders are no longer heads of state. (Hillary is hoping we won't notice.)

Did she have all the "clearances" necessary to participate in these negotiations and meetings?

[leftofcool]

6. Clearance?

I know a little something about security clearances and yes, as First Lady, she would have been cleared. It's a non issue, and whether or not those leaders are still heads of state makes what difference?

[eilen]

7. Is she claiming Jimmy Carter like ambassador powers?

[Saturday]

8. Hillary is puffing her experience but Obama isn't? ROTFLMAO nt