(Apologies if this should go in Santorum) Regardless of your opinion of her politics, or the particular subject matter, she put on a tour-de-force today with the Senate Foreign Affairs and House Foreign Relations committee. Facts at hand, ready for any question, unflappable. There were some serious executive skills on display. It makes me think maybe she will run for President (my guess has been that she won't). Here's one snippet (not finding much on youtube yet, but you might still catch some on C-SPAN right now): Rand Paul with a 3 minute standard implied insult leadup to a left-turn question about Libyan weapon shipments to Turkey (I'm guessing for some crackpot theory he got from Alex Jones):
I love how the thumbnail captured her "well, isn't your pontificating just so adorable" facial expression.
RE: Johnson- Say ascertain one more time motherfucker. RE: Paul-"One of the most disappointing things about 9/11..." is not the most embarrassing part of his psychotic episode. One of the most disappointing things about 1/11/13 is that you can't go to jail for voting for Rand Paul and making me have to listen to this bullshit.
I see great things from Rand Paul on the Foreign Relations committee, taking his marching orders from crackpot web sites.
At least Paul has the decency to leave the chamber after he made his speech, crapped the bed with his Turkey question, drank some water, shuffled papers, and looked around the room until she was finished responding. (I'm not sure if I'm being sarcastic or not).
I wonder if someone told Senator Paul that there was a couple of wars after 9/11 that some people died in, since he apparently thinks Benghazi was totes the worst. (Actually he was trying to repeat the right-winger trope that there was no terror attacks against 9/11 until Bush left office, which is also false but you know facts and such)
Ron Johnson is such a tool. The sad thing is he defeated Russ Feingold in the 2010 Tea Party bonanza. Russ Feingold who was the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act. Because he read it.
I see a lot more support these days for Hilary Clinton to make a presidential run. Apologies if this is the wrong thread for it, but I'm looking to see if this change in attitudes, or what I perceive as a change, from however many years ago is because Her role as Secretary of State has shown she's highly capable She has become highly capable/matured due to her role as Secretary of State Her image was highly tarnished and is now much improved
It's certainly possible, and as a Clinton 2008 supporter I would be all for it. But to be clear, it remains to be seen how even this part of it ends up being recorded in the popular narrative; NPR's coverage today was at best fawningly polite to embarrassing efforts like Johnson's to create dramatic confrontation, described Clinton herself as emotional and everything short of NOTICEABLY UTERINE, and concluded with how Benghazi would be a black mark on her otherwise strong tenure as Secretary. I can only imagine what it looks like elsewhere.
I'm not sure how much mainstream media matters anymore but her tone is getting far more play than the substance of her testimony. It's another example of "if a man did the exact same thing it wouldn't be news." I do like her expression in that screen grab.
If she is at all on the fence about running, I imagine the hearing will have had a strong do-I-really-want-to-put-up-with-this-buillshit-all-the-fucking-time effect on her.
Sec of State is a role without much in the way of benchmarks. Don't piss off our ally's (especially Israel) and makes lots of appearances. That she was famous anyway made this a perfect portfolio for her, she received outsized welcomes wherever she went. Was there a crisis or event that she handled? Most of the Arab Spring events (our part in the Libyan uprising in particular) seemed to be handled by the White House directly (in so far as I can recall, she may have had a bigger, or even behind-the-scenes, role than I remember). Certainly being in this picture - is a good place to start a Presidential run. But I can't think of a signature achievement while she was Sec of State. But my problems with Hillary as a Presidental Candidate are - She has failed at the two largest initiatives she headed, HealthCare and her Candidacy. I'm aware of the obstacles she faced for HealthCare but she started her run for President with huge advantages in both money and name recognition. She squandered those with bad strategy (she didn't put any organization in the smaller, post super Tuesday states, and Obama did) and terrible advisers (the likes of Mark Penn and Lanny Davis). All of that aside, I don't like the idea of dynastic politics. If Uncle Joe runs (which I am not wild about) his qualifications will not start with who he married. As I think whomever is running is likely to get housed by Christy anyway, the point may be moot.
I'm not a big fan of Clinton, I was really against her in 2008 and I'm not sure what I'd do if she ran for President again, but this is not fair. The woman was a US Senator for eight years and Secretary of State for four, so there are some things you can use to assess her career beyond her previous Presidential bid and a thing she worked on a couple of decades ago when she wasn't actually an official part of the government.
It's hilariously extreme in some places. While reading an article linked from another thread here, I was tempted by a sidebar link and was kind of surprised to find an article that basically called Clinton an arrogant, screeching harpy who revealed her callous indifference to the very lives of the embassy workers, and it was the heroic efforts of the valiant Ron Johnson that finally cracked her facade. But then I noticed that I'd been suckered into visiting the 'community' section of the Washington Times...
I think Clinton's a bit suboptimal, but only in the sense that I'd really like to continue moving the Democratic party beyond it's DLC-influenced 90's period. And I think people are way overestimating Chris Christie. Unless the GOP electorate changes significantly he's going to face the same problem Mitt Romney faced: he'll have to abandon his "moderate" image and go full-bore conservative loon. Plus the guy's got some significant downsides; I'm actually not sure he'd be able to handle the pressure of a national campaign without flipping the fuck out.
Great, she should be able to make an affirmative case for herself then. Pretty much the same affirmative case that she could have made in 2008, but didn't. I don't see anything she has done in the last 4 years as Sec of State, where she was not the ultimate shot-caller, to change my impression of her. Maybe Christie is just trying to establish his Moderate bone fides before he takes a Hard Right, but he has been one of the few Republican politicians willing to take on the dysfunction in his own party. I think his personal popularity (especially stacked up against the rest of the lilliputian GOP field) will allow him to over-ride the loons in his own party. But this is probably for another thread.
Hey man, I'm not stumping for her here. But if you're unimpressed by her you could at least be unimpressed by substantive things, like her actual record in government.
I thought we were talking about her viability as a presidential candidate, I am citing a pretty decent case study for evaluation. BTW - I thought she was fine as both Sec of State and Senator, she should continue to be one of those. And, as a facile aside, I really like her green suit heavy glasses look.
If she runs she's the frontrunner, but he staff performance and campaign management was so incredibly awful last time she's going to need to demonstrate a real improvement in organization capabilities before she gets my support. "Runs a good campaign organization" is about the only proxy we have for ability to run the executive branch in this case.
Well, since Obama won't be running, and if she gets his endorsement, she could probably pull people from his campaign for hers...
Traditionally the President stays out of the primary races, so she won't get an endorsement. Especially if Biden ends up running (which seems likely).
I'm not buying the Biden hype, I doubt he'll run. Playing footsy with the idea though can raise the barrier to entry for others (as Clinton's possible entry does). The only former Secretary of State that's run for President in modern history is Alexander Haig, so we don't have a real track record of SoS accomplishments that help for the big chair. The most important thing a SoS does is execute what the President wants and help the President decide what he should want, neither is glamorous but require competency and leadership. And, of course, negotiating with other states and major actors. Most of which is not probably not energizing to a many voters. But if you want a list, I found these skimming wikipedia (but we'll never know what crazy ideas she helped shoot down, or which of her crazy ideas were shot down): Advocating for 21k additional troops in Afghanistan in 2009 over Biden. Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (departmental reform). Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative. Helped save the Turkish-Armenian Accord Attempted to repair US image in Pakistan Advocated free internet vis-a-vis China (and isn't "China Really Hates Her" a good achievement?) Damage control after Wikileaks published confidential State cables. Lead the response with Egypt during the protests, calling for "orderly transition". Shifted to support Libyan intervention. Advocated for gay rights to UN Human Rights Council. Help negotiate with Burma/Myanmar to open up a bit. (forgot that earlier)
What are signature achievements (positive ones) that you attach to secretaries of state, off the top of your head? When they succeed, the president takes credit. When they fail, it's generally only highlighted as part of a relatively underhanded attack (such as Benghazi, which was mainly aimed at Obama's administration in the aggregate and his presidential run in particular) or in extraordinarily high profile circumstances, like Colin Powell's UN speech. The fact is diplomacy is a very technical job that when done properly can (and ought to be) be exceptionally low profile, particularly for a country with the United States' assets and liabilities internationally. I followed the public information surrounding her work during the Arab Spring as well as various specific points of engagement such as the detente with Myanmar, and with rare exception they were model performances for the effective employment of American influence. That doesn't mean I always agree that US objectives or the outcomes she achieves in their pursuit Well, that's not much of a substantive criticism, and reflects an extraordinarily post-Obamacare perspective in terms of what could feasibly be traded when you're in a secondary or tertiary negotiating position as first lady. This, also, is not worth much, and rests on a decidedly unrealistic notion of what options were available to her when she began her life in politics and as a first lady. There are certainly many questions you can ask of her effectiveness as a candidate, but her number one error was underestimating the degree to which sexism prevails in the country relative to racism, and bad strategy on "legitimate" issues was only a part of the 2008 dynamic. Me, I'm not a fan of Bill Clinton's presidencies, nor particularly of Bill Clinton signature issues, which include such gems as three strikes laws and having exactly the kind of complementary staffing to round out Republican efforts at deregulation of finance and everything else. I'm saying this as someone looking to stake out a credible moderate candidate who has demonstrated executive-caliber intelligence and strategy as well as emotional maturity in the face of a profoundly misogynistic/sexist media buzz around her since forever. I'm always willing to look at better options and a lot can change on particular issues, but there's a lot more to what's going on here than pundit hit lists about dynasties and bullshit like that.
Now, I think you're right to question her electability; I think if anything being SoS is a liability but a minor one relative to being a woman (and who knows, a lot has changed in terms of demographic weight lately). But it's really important to keep that distinct from questions about her competence, and that's what I was trying to underline.
Condi Rice helped get us into and then helped her President incompetently manage an unneeded war and Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton (neither of which may have been SoS, but off the top of my head, one of them may have been). SoS is as high profile as any Cabinet Position gets, but yes, it is one that optimally operates off the front page. And yes, Hillary has shown that as a Senator or a SoS she is competent and capable. That doesn't mean she is uniquely qualified for the office of the Presidency. I would argue that all things being equal (I can't give her extra credit for coming close in 2008 because she is a girl, she failed not because of her gender but because she ran a strategically terrible campaign) she is as good a candidate as the Democrats have, but she comes with baggage (of her own and Bill's) and she has a record as both a candidate and as the head of an Major Initiative and she failed miserably at both. I don't see any real indication that 2012 Hillary is much different from 2008 Hillary. As far as Biden goes, I am a proud member of the bald brotherhood and can't support him and his ridiculous hair plugs. IMOIf one or the other of these two is nominated, I predict folks will go to Christie and the hope that he can reform his party. That being said, I don't know who else in the Democrat party is likely to run.
National Security Advisor (at least for the first part) and Vice President, respectively. Also Secretary of State was viewed as an extremely viable path to the Presidency for a long time if you're willing to go back that far, but that was also a long time ago so I think bloo is right to discount that at this point. While she did run a terrible campaign, way to not give Obama credit for running an outstanding one and also for actually being a better candidate. Really?
She started with huge advantages over a little known foe and she failed to capitalize. Not having organization in place to contest non-super Tuesday states for instance. Obama took advantage of her hubris. Would you perfer a Herp! or a Derp! in response? Maybe I can interest you in a HerpaDerp! ?
Outside of a few regional enclaves where it's a self-descriptor "Democrat" as an adjective rather than noun is a Fox/Rush "Republicans talking about democrats" shibboleth term.
Well, it is bog-standard way of trying to diminish the opposition's party name by the party that spent much of the time between mid-terms and presidential elections engaging in voter suppression legislation and that now appears to be gearing up for massive state electoral rejiggling to disenfranchise Democrat voters. So, yeah, you might not have meant it that way but you are regurgitating childish Republican snark.
Oh for fuck sake. Does anyone actually think I meant it that way? I'll be honest, I didn't much notice I left the "ic" off of the word. I spel not gud sometymes.
My point was "FYI you don't want to be saying that unless you're in one of these regional enclaves where they say it," not "OMFG secret Republican get him."
That's the way it's used 99.9% of the time. Some people here and/or at Qt3 have used it that way in the past. I don't carry around a pocket index of everyone's opinions of political parties, so yeah I kind of did take it at face value. Anyway, now you know. :)
I guess you'll have to list the Republican Power Words that are likely to make you hike up your skirts and dance on a chair like a housewife in a Tex Avery cartoon then, so I don't accidentally use them. btw I've always known that the singular is some sort of implied insult, going back to when W would use it during press conferences, but I also dont give a shit.
I sincerely hope that the Democrats nominate a woman for 2016. I just hope that it's not someone related to a former president. I am just averse to that, and not because I think it means that the person is shined up by being related to a president and wouldn't be considered qualified otherwise. I think Hillary's qualified, regardless of my stance on dynastic candidates. She'll have my vote in the general, if she makes it out of the primary. And I also hope that whoever gets nominated picks Biden for VP. Behind the personality is a philosophical heavy hitter, even when he's goofy. All the people who don't like Joe, I don't like them. You must like Joe.
