Word: reformer
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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There are, however, three qualities that could make her a memorable Secretary of State. She brings a vision of departmental reform - the need to elevate foreign aid programs to the same status and rigorous scrutiny as diplomacy - that could change striped pants into chinos in the developing world. She is also the first elected politician to hold the office since Edmund Muskie briefly did during the Carter Administration, which has enabled her to better understand and interact with the politicians who run places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. But most important, she is an international celebrity with a much higher profile...
...doesn't, it seems weak and supplicatory. A call for the Israelis to freeze settlements is effective only if it is accompanied by the credible threat of a reduction in aid. "You can't be seen pushing countries around - demanding [that] Israel freeze settlements, demanding that Hamid Karzai reform his government - and not get results," says Leslie H. Gelb, author of Power Rules. "The leaders of these countries are tough, successful politicians, and they'll begin to take you less seriously." (See pictures of the 1979 revolution in Iran...
...Conference of Catholic Bishops, human-rights groups like Human Rights Watch and policy think tanks like Freedom House, the D.C.-based Cuba Study Group and the Brookings Institute. The White House, careful not to alienate Menendez when it needs every Democratic vote on issues like health care reform, has yet to throw its support behind the bill. But despite Obama's backing of the trade embargo, many observers believe it will be hard for him not to sign a lifting of the travel ban given his own stated policy preference for engaging Cuba...
...Czech President Vaclav Klaus to sign an agreement he loathed on Tuesday was momentous, nonetheless. The long-delayed passage of the Lisbon Treaty - the Czech Republic had been the last holdout among the European Union's 27 members - marks the end of an almost decade-long saga to reform the cumbersome institution and give it a stronger, more unified voice on the global stage...
...comes the fun part for E.U. watchers and anyone interested in political intrigue: Who will get the top jobs in Brussels now that the big reform treaty is in place? Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Prime Minister of Sweden, which currently holds the rotating E.U. presidency, has already begun a round of telephone calls to draw up a shortlist of candidates for the new E.U. president and foreign policy chief positions. An emergency summit could be held as early as next week to decide. (See ten things to do in Sweden...