Word: questionable
(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...
Clinton's value to the Administration was clear in Pakistan. She wowed a public so skeptical that it had been questioning the $7.5 billion in purely economic and humanitarian aid the Administration had promised. "How much damage control have you been able to do on this trip?" asked Meher Bokhari, a television-news-show host, at the end of Clinton's meeting with Pakistani women. The Secretary seemed nonplussed by the bluntness of the question. "I don't know," she said. "I hope some...
Afterward, I asked Bokhari to answer her own question. "Well, this trip was long overdue," she said. "The Pakistani people really needed to talk to an American about our concerns - the strings attached to aid programs, the drone attacks, their history of support for the military dictatorship. And it needs to be followed up. But if you ask me about the damage control" - she paused, thinking it through - "I'd have to say a lot. She accomplished a lot." (See pictures of Clinton meeting Michelle Obama...
...other religious leaders in Europe are swimming against a growing secular tide. A 2008 Gallup poll registered a continued decline in Christian faith across Europe. More than two-thirds of respondents in countries such as Britain, France, the Czech Republic and all of Scandinavia responded "No" to the question of whether religion was important to them. The 82-year-old Benedict has made it a centerpiece of his papacy to reverse the decline of Christianity on the Continent, where the faith originated. Last month, he used a Vatican meeting with the new E.U. envoy to the Holy See to recall...
...flare-ups between Italy and Strasbourg are both anomalous to and emblematic of the continental shift in faith. The Vatican's presence within its borders keeps Catholicism a part of the public life and social fabric in Italy, where only 23% of respondents answered "No" to the Gallup poll question. But the largely rhetorical battles like the one over crucifixes mask the reality that Italian life is ever more secular, and the ethnic and religious fabric is in fact undergoing major changes with the arrival of immigrants, including many from Muslim-majority countries. Buttiglione, who called the court's decision...