Word: pointing
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...home, she has often seemed tentative and deferential. In a conversation with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates aired by CNN in early October, Clinton's cautious formality took a backseat to Gates' brisk, humorous confidence on policy issues. Abroad, she seems far more confident, at times to the point of recklessness, as in Jerusalem. (See pictures of the last days of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign...
...like why no one in the Pakistani government knew where Osama bin Laden was, even though he had been in the country since 2002. Press accounts either emphasized the embarrassment of a Secretary of State's getting pummeled or fixed on Clinton's undiplomatic bluntness. But they missed the point: her candor, her willingness to listen to and acknowledge criticism, had begun to undermine the prevailing Pakistani image of the U.S. as arrogant and bossy, more interested in having the Pakistani military fight its war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban than in having a true strategic partnership. The contrast...
...development - reinforce the military's efforts to secure the population. As a result, there was immediate chemistry between Clinton and General David Petraeus, author of the Army's counterinsurgency manual, who became one of her prime military mentors when she served on the Senate Armed Services Committee. At one point, well before Obama made his presidential intentions known, I asked Petraeus if there was any potential Democratic candidate who understood how his mind worked, and he said, "You mean, aside from Hillary...
...than Clinton's relationship with the White House staff. Clinton was particularly irritated by the ridiculously strict vetting process that thwarted her favored candidate for USAID director, Paul Farmer, from getting the job. "It was all sorts of niggling things," says a Clinton adviser, "like, Farmer had at one point brought more than $10,000 in cash into Haiti. The money was for a needle-exchange program, but the amount was illegal...
These tensions are well within the boundaries of normal, creative policymaking. There is absolutely no indication that the Secretary is frustrated to the point of jumping ship - or returning to politics as a candidate for governor of New York, as has been rumored. Quite the contrary, she seems intent on making history as Secretary of State. To do that, though, she 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...