Word: clintonism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Hillary's Choice The tensions between the White House and State raise a fascinating question going forward. Obama and Clinton are in substantive agreement on the President's diplomacy-first philosophy and on most policy issues - although neither is willing to disclose the content of their private conversations - but style often predicts substance in foreign policy; neither Obama's gauziness nor Clinton's inconsistent bluntness overseas seems particularly solid. There is a growing perception that the Administration's policies have been thwarted across the board: Afghanistan is a mess, Iran seems ready to scuttle the nuclear negotiations, there...
...White House argues that some progress has been made: Iran is on the defensive, and North Korea has said it will return to the six-party talks. Clinton argues, correctly, about the need for "strategic patience." But the only thing Obama really has to show for his efforts so far is a Nobel Prize for Potential and - no small thing - the wisdom to have refrained from doing anything so wildly stupid as invading Iraq. The President has been willing to use military force - the Predator drones that have decimated al-Qaeda's leadership testify to his lack of squeamishness...
...Clinton is unwilling to acknowledge these problems, and her staff is loath to admit her occasional mistakes. Her praise for the President is fulsome, and aides say the relationship with Obama really - really - is strong. But there are also burblings and emanations from Clinton's staff and friends, Foggy Bottom body language, that suggest there is a need for the Administration to produce a second act after the Rodney King phase. And the White House is perplexed by the uncharacteristic lack of discipline indicated by Clinton's occasional overseas gaffes...
...will have to have the same authority at home as she has abroad. She will have to become the President's primary foreign policy voice. Over the first nine months of the Obama Administration, seven different Obama officials have spoken on the Sunday talk shows about foreign policy. Clinton has been on each of the Sunday shows once. "Either you have one person sending the foreign policy message, with the clear approval of the President," says a former Republican Secretary of State, "or there is no message."(See pictures from eight months of Obama diplomacy...
Aides to Obama say they would like to see her on the Sunday shows more often. (Indeed, Clinton's staff acknowledged that she was asked to appear two additional times but was traveling and unable to do so.) Ultimately, though, television is a metaphor for the larger questions that need to be resolved: How much can these former rivals - both extremely guarded and private people - really trust each other; and, if not Clinton, who will emerge as the President's alter ego on foreign policy? At this point, the strongest member of Obama's national-security team is Gates...