Hillary Rebuts The Declinists

[SoxFan]

(Clinton) argued essentially for updating the liberal internationalist vision for today’s interconnected world. She stressed the need for America to once again be the chief “architect” of cooperative institutions, at both the regional and global level, for providing mutual security and prosperity, tackling underdevelopment and climate change, and defending human rights (with her customary special emphasis on women’s equality). Through such interlacing institutions, she said, the burden of providing “public goods” could be spread more broadly.

She also widened the definition of the Obama administration’s policy of “engagement.” In addition to engaging adversaries and rivals diplomatically, she stressed her determination to engage directly with the people and foreign publics in general.

http://www.progressivefix.com/hillary-rebuts-the-declinists

[tularetom]

1. I'm happy that she feels that way however

I'm not sure we any longer have either the capital or the credibility to accomplish this.

Shit like burning korans tends, invading countries, torturing prisoners etc. to diminish our influence with a large segment of the world's population, so in spite of Ms Clinton's good intentions, the world will probably not be particularly receptive to our assuming the role of do gooder to the planet.

[Scurrilous]

2. Thanks SoxFan.

K & R :thumbsup:

[Cha]

3. Thanks Soxfan..

So maybe we'll see who was right someday.. Evidently the Obama Admin thinks her view is important.

[quiet.american]

4. Go, Hillary!

I may have been angry with her during the primaries, but before it was all over, she made me proud again! (And I never burned her book - it still proudly sits on my bookshelf.)

[TheKentuckian]

5. Neoliberal rhetoric to justify free trade, empire, and voodoo economics that make us serfs

Sweet talk designed to appeal to your better nature to make you cheer cutting yourself and your countrymen off at the knees to profit a greedy few.

We sit in the rubble of their bogus vision at this very moment. This is how you go from shining beacon on a hill to the trash heap with stars in your eyes.

We aren't helping shit we are exploiting slaves to allow a transition to serfdom ourselves and eventually equaling out globally somewhere between the two because nothing is going to trickle down anywhere.

As automation and computers handle greater loads and resources more scarce the surplus serfs will be encouraged to die quickly.

Forget the fairy tales you better look at the nuts and bolts.
Refusal to see and combat the class war is a plea for extinction.

[Dr.Phool]

17. Well, she's a diplomat now.

She's learned how to tell us serf's to go to hell in such a way, that some of us are actually looking forward to the trip.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

36. Hyperbolic much? (nt)

[boppers]

43. "As automation and computers handle greater loads and resources"

... means more time for people to make art, live life, and not spend their lives in factories, away from their families.

Sometimes I wonder if everybody had food, medicine, and housing, for free, there wouldn't be folks screaming about the injustice of the state to provide them with luxury cars and huge estates.

Then I look to the last 50 years of history, and think "been there, done that".

[azmouse]

6. She's a wonderful SoS.

None better!

[JNelson6563]

38. Agreed!

[Beacool]

7. Damn shame she's not president.

:-(

[joshcryer]

8. I hear ya.

Flames against ya in 3...2...1.

[Beacool]

9. I don't give a damn what his supporters think.

Democrats up for reelection are running from Obama almost as fast as Repugs ran from Bush in the latter part of his presidency. It'll be a miracle if we keep the House in November.

;(

You may like this article:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-09-08/hillary-clinton-foreign-policy-speech-better-than-obama/

;-)

[SemiCharmedQuark]

10. "His supporters"? It's actually spelled "D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T-S", Bea.

[Cha]

12. Yeah, good ol Democrats supporting the President!

:loveya: it!

[AtomicKitten]

16. yes indeed

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

34. Just imagine if we had "Bush Lite" in the Oval Office.

[Beacool]

13. Yeah, well..........

You say tomatoe, I say tomato.....

:D

[karynnj]

35. Nice way to distort a well known NEUTRAL difference into one where

you not too subtly claim the correct spelling - leaving the rest of use with the incorrect one.

The fact is that President Obama has led on those same foreign policy ideas. There is nothing to suggest that Hillary would have done better on the domestic or economic issues. In a less polarized 1993, she was unable to get a Democratic majority to even VOTE on her health care bill - and it was Bill Clinton, who made the decision not to force a vote.

I know you still have regrets that there was no President Hillary Clinton. We all have candidates who we gave our hearts as well as our support to. I would have loved a President McGovern, a President Hart, a President Tsongus or Harkin, or a President Kerry. Most of still have some anger that there was not a President Gore - as he actually won. Particularly when they did not get the nomination, it is strange not to respect that the party as a whole did not choose her.

I seriously can't remember a single time in the 1990s where I bemoaned that we did not have the more progressive, liberal Harkin as President. Clinton was seriously my near last choice - because it was already clear that he was not always completely honest, had a complicated relationship with women, and had a poor environmental record.

[KakistocracyHater]

15. you forgot N-E-W

*

[Cha]

18. No, she didn't forget anything.nt

[KakistocracyHater]

19. it's to semi-charmed not you

*

[Cha]

20. I don't care.

[Tarheel_Dem]

23. Dems ran from Hillary too, which is why she's not Prez. And if you think...

the media, the Repukes, or the leftier-than-thou's would have been any kinder to Hillary, you're delusional. :-(

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tarheel_Dem]

27. Yet another primary rehash from beacool. Oh well, water is wet.

:shrug:

[Tarheel_Dem]

28. And Hillary would have saved us all by now. I know. Talk about "messianic". (nt)

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

32. They ran away from Hillary even faster and not because of local politics either.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

48. Bea *IS* delusional. The Republicans only pretended to like Hillary. They wanted to run against her

because they had so much to use against her. They would have loved to run against her failed health care program. They would have loved to run against Vince Foster, the Travel Office firings, Whitewater, and Monica Lewinsky. Not to mention, her temperament and how she is politically divisive. Her behavior during the primaries was absolutely disgusting!! And she never apologized for her Iraq vote!

Don't get it twisted. The Republicans hated Hillary. And many Democrats saw her as too polarizing, which is why she lost support in the Senate, her own colleagues against her.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

47. Why are you still on DU? I don't understand that. All day long, all you and your fellow PUMAs do is

lament the fact that Hillary lost the primaries.

You don't support the president, then I don't get why you're here. And I definitely don't understand why the moderators refuse to shut you down when your pro-Hillary, anti-Obama rhetoric lead to fights.

Then, you play the victim when others call you out on it. Disgusting!

[jesus_of_suburbia]

11. K&R. n/t

[Beacool]

14. Hi, Jesus!!

:hi:

[jesus_of_suburbia]

37. Hey, Bea!

:hug:

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Born_A_Truman]

26. ....

[JTFrog]

29. No need to be rolled over when you just lay down.

That's what her experience was while a Senator.

No matter how many PUMA's try to beat the dead horse, it ain't getting up and going anywhere.

[NJmaverick]

31. Why? What would she have done differently?

[craigmatic]

21. America is strongest when we work with and lead the rest of the world in peacetime.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

33. You got that right. IF Hillary had won the nomination and the election . . .

no doubt we'd be mired in another war somewhere right now. And we wouldn't have extricated ourselves from Iraq or be withdrawing from Afghanistan. Obama is leading us to a more peaceful existence. What a breath of fresh air not having a warmonger in the White House.

[TBF]

46. What a breath of fresh air not having a warmonger in the White House

How can you say that given the increase in war spending?

http://openleft.com/diary/17198/obamas-budget-proposes-big-increase-in-war-spending

[NJmaverick]

30. K & R!

[Spazito]

39. I have to admit I was never a big fan of Hillary Clinton but...

she has definitely impressed me with the job she is doing as Secretary of State. I must also admit to being skeptical when President Obama appointed her, that skepticism is now gone.

[ClarkUSA]

40. Too bad the SoS is prone to diplomatic gaffes. Just today: "Obama rejects Clinton comment on Mexico"

President Obama sought to calm a diplomatic furor, disputing Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's assertion that Mexico has begun to look like Colombia at the height of its struggle against a drug-financed insurgency... Clinton's comments were quickly challenged by aides to Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

"Mexico is a great democracy, vibrant, with a growing economy," Obama told the newspaper. "And as a result, what is happening there can't be compared with what happened in Colombia 20 years ago."

U.S. officials including Arturo Valenzuela, assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs, and Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, have scrambled to minimize the damage to relations with Mexico, a key partner in the anti-drug fight.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-fg-obama-mexico-20100911,0,7136563.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fmostviewed+%28L.A.+Times+-+Most+Viewed+Stories%29

Is Hillary More Gaffe-Prone Than Biden?

It's certainly starting to seem that way. Last week, in Pakistan she talked tough about the Pakistani government tolerating Al Qaeda and then immediately backpedaled. Then, this past weekend in Israel she seemed to indicate that the Obama administration was no longer demanding an immediate settlement freeze from the Israeli government before, a day later, walking back that statement during a luncheon in Morocco. Ben Smith concludes:

The early questions about her role in Middle East politics -- would she be as hawkishly pro-Israel as she was in the Senate -- haven't really been answered, and her actual views remain unclear. But in this most delicate, closely parsed of diplomatic arenas, her inexperience as a diplomat, and her (underestimated by those who didn't cover her on the trail) tendency toward incautious statements has really turned into a liability for the administration.

http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-plank/hillary-more-gaffe-prone-biden

Reset Button: The gaffes of Hillary Clinton.

The hallmark of Hillary’s tenure as America’s top diplomat has hardly been robotic precision. It has instead been a curious propensity for public statements that require amendment, clarification, and implicit retraction... The first sign that Hillary’s lips might be surprisingly loose came on her very first official trip--a swing through Asia in February. Aboard her government jet, Clinton spoke with reporters about prospects for the replacement of the ailing North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il. The longtime diplomatic writers were startled; Clinton had broken what the Times called “an informal taboo” on the subject, which, tellingly, neither she nor top Obama officials seem to have publicly revisited since. More dramatically, on that same trip, Hillary unexpectedly dismissed the role of human rights in U.S.-China relations. Such concerns, she explained, “can’t interfere” with issues like global warming and the economy. “e pretty much know what are going to say” anyway, she shrugged. Human rights advocates were appalled, and State Department officials traveling with her reportedly debated whether she had been refreshingly candid or had committed a colossal blunder.

More memorable, if less consequential, was Clinton’s August trip to Africa, which featured a town-hall-style meeting in Congo. Tired and frayed after several days of travel on the continent, Hillary lost her patience with a questioner who asked her husband’s view of an obscure World Bank policy. “My husband is not secretary of state, I am,” she snapped. “I am not going to be channeling my husband.” Clinton’s aides initially suggested that a mistranslation was to blame--that, in fact, the questioner had inquired about Barack Obama’s views, not Bill Clinton’s. That turned out not to be the case... Though none of these comments had a tangible impact on U.S. foreign policy, the same can’t be said about two episodes in which Clinton veered away from the White House’s message on the Middle East peace process. The first came in May, when Clinton revealed at a press conference that Obama’s call for an Israeli settlement freeze included any “natural growth” within existing settlements. The circumstances remain murky, but two sources with detailed knowledge of the U.S.-Israeli relationship say that the Obama team was not yet prepared to make public this departure from Bush-era policy. Rather than leave his secretary of state twisting in the wind, says one of the sources, Obama wound up repeating her formulation a few days later, touching off months of tension with the Israelis.

The second flap occurred on November 1 in Jerusalem, where Clinton abruptly reversed course on settlements--this time saying that a proposal by the Netanyahu government that falls short of the freeze Obama has sought nevertheless amounts to an “unprecedented” concession by Israel. The formulation--which infuriated Arab leaders and made it seem that Obama had surrendered to Netanyahu--had not been endorsed by the White House, which was not pleased with the statement. The Times subsequently reported that even Clinton’s aides considered the remark poorly worded. “Our leading diplomat is very undiplomatic,” says a Democratic official with a Jewish organization in Washington... Mistakes on the trail can cost votes. But loose talk in diplomacy can make it hard for enemies and allies alike to know what’s coming off the cuff and what represents official U.S. policy.

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/reset-button

"How Do You Say 'Hillary's Gaffe' in Russian?"
http://thepeoplescube.com/current-truth/how-do-you-say-hillary-s-gaffe-in-russian-t3100.html

"Queen's birthday gaffe leaves Hillary Clinton red faced"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/theroyalfamily/7804820/Queens-birthday-gaffe-leaves-Hillary-Clinton-red-faced.html

"Clinton's gaffes... on tour"

And in Brussels, there was also some consternation when Mrs Clinton said American democracy had been around longer than European democracy.

She also referred to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana as High Representative Solano and called Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU's external relations commissioner, Benito.

In Geneva, after the meeting with Mr Lavrov, she struggled to pronounce the name of the Russian president and never quite got it right.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7931699.stm

[karynnj]

41. Nice collection

I wonder if the periodic, "Hillary is a star" articles are because she really has not lived up to the early 2009 hype that she would be a super star secretary of state. The idea that her international star power could give the Obama administration someone, other than the president, who could by going to foreign countries win support, not just of their leaders, but of the people.

The fact is, a careful parsing of the article, belies the title. Specifically, the comments that others have done the personal diplomacy - and now, she is after a year and a half as Secretary of State, taking on the role leading negotiations. Yet, anyone following the various pieces of the middle east problem knows that Mitchell, who was critical to finding a solution in Northern Ireland is the key person. He has support in that role both from the Israelis and the Arabs. In fact, this is another area where John Kerry helped in a real way. It was Kerry who facilitated re-establishing ties with Syria.

The last time, there was a barrage of star Hillary articles was when she attended Karzai's swearing in. The articles spoke of her special relationship with him and tried to rewrite the history of his accepting the run off - some even attributing to her things that Kerry spoke of after he returned from about 5 days in Afghanistan.

The fact is that Clinton has the position of Secretary of State. As such, she will get credit for the work done by many in her organization. But, from your many examples, she has not, in her high level personal diplomacy been exceptional - in fact the burden of being as newsworthy as she is, has made the blunders of a novice diplomat more obvious.

[lunatica]

42. Do they really believe what they're saying?

Do they still think we're some shiny city on some hill or that our streets are paved of gold? Jesus! How many people have to be foreclosed on an homeless and jobless before they stop the bullshit? We're breaking Hillary!

And I like Hillary.

[smalll]

44. Obama/Clinton 2012 ---

It's Inevitable.

:shrug:

[TBF]

45. I thought it was inevitable in 2008, but then he gave her a job

overseas. I don't love Hillary, but I'd feel more comfortable with her in that seat than Joe Biden with his banker ties.