The story that came in my morning email alert from the NY Times, of all the anti-Hillary junk I have read, is the one most deserving of attention from Homegirl Security today. Other stories swirl around Hillary’s auto-umbrella (the one that keeps her “in the shadows” dontcha know), her media-manufactured envy of Bill’s suddenly “overwhelming” presence in the media for his heroic action in single-handedly retrieving the imprisoned female journalists from North Kores – you know – the release negotiated by Hillary and the State Department, her impatience at an inappropriate question at a Town Hall meeting in DRC last week (hmmmmm – seems to indicate that questions to her at Town Halls are not “cleared” first as they are for SOME people), and her dancing, always her dancing which I still contend she has every right to enjoy after a hard day of work and which she does very well. (I say this as a long-time student of Afro-Caribbean dance. She HAS GOT the moves!)
But THIS story is the one in my cross-hairs today, and I am super-steamed: Hillary Clinton’s Folksy Diplomacy . Why? Because of the many things Hillary is trying to accomplish at the State Department, and the list is ambitious, her signature as SOS is that of the Diplomat of the People. From the outset she said that she would be reaching out to the people in the countries she visits and moving outside of the ministerial halls. This IS her style, and it always has been. It does make for a packed schedule on a trip abroad since she must still hold her bilaterals, visit landmarks, shrines, memorials, meet with high officials, as well as find time to eat a bit and sleep a little.
I have to wonder how someone like Jeffrey Gettleman gets to follow the SOS on this trip (other than his single claim-to-fame that he lives in Kenya) while so ignorant of State Department practices under this SOS while many unpaid bloggers would have given their (our) eyeteeth to have been along with Hillary. Hillary does not travel to a country without being completely briefed. In fact, and I have no direct knowledge of this except what I and many others know about Hillary, she goes beyond the typical briefings of her predecessors. She studies the history of U.S. relations with the country and finds an unusual aspect within the relationship – which she mentions. She is fully knowledgeable of treaties, charters, and agreements between the U.S. and that country, and she makes it her business to know something about the local economy especially as it pertains to women and children. This background about the host country is what forms her agenda and itinerary. I would have been mollified if Mr. Gettleman had taken the same trouble with regard to the State Department as it runs under Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Had he done so, Mr. Gettleman would have gone into this assignment knowing what bilaterals, camera sprays, meet-and-greets, and townterviews are by visiting the State Department website, and blogs (the way so many of us know without ever setting foot inside Foggy Bottom). As for being ushered around by 20-somethings, well, Mr. Gettleman, get to the theater much? There, one is frequently ushered by the young. Get over that.
Here are some portions of this story that I find particularly irksome. They are by no means the only ones.
“Condi would never do this,” whispered one of Mrs. Clinton’s aides during yet another sweaty town hall meeting. Neither, probably, would Colin Powell. Or Madeleine Albright. Or Henry Kissinger. Or just about any other secretary of state, a job that in the past seemed to go to people who didn’t like to smile much.
But Mrs. Clinton is different. She’s a recovering politician, with First Lady tendencies. And a celebrity in her own right. She can’t resist the rope line even when it’s in a South African housing project teaming with glassy-eyed men and her secret service agents are practically shouting into their cufflinks. Her style is to go heavy on the politics, heavy on the policy, but mix in some real people as well.
“Diplomacy is not just carried out by diplomats,” she said in her farewell-for-now speech from Cape Verde.
A recovering politician? With First Lady tendencies? Excuse me? Hillary appears to have made the most seamless transition from politics to statesmanship of all the politicians in the new administration. She immediately dove in and began her listening tour among her new colleagues to see how the department’s functions worked and might possibly be made more efficient and/or FAIR (N.B. bennies for domestic partners). As for the First Lady tendencies – I am not even going to honor that with a comment. When people who get paid to write have nothing else to say about Hillary, they start talking about her “tendencies.” That part was a waste of ink and paper, Mr. Gettleman. All of New York State and 18 million voters know better. Of course one who never bothered to find out how the State Department works under Hillary’s auspices could not be expected to know that among her most important messages since she arrived at State has been that every citizen has the capacity to reach out and be a citizen-diplomat. And what is this new meme that she’s a celebrity? That is the second time I have seen that over perhaps a four-day period. Exactly what is it that makes her a “celebrity”? If anything, perhaps the fact that she is not your grandfather’s SOS – she’s actually beautiful enough to be a movie star (so beautiful that it’s hard for Hollywood to cast actresses to play her), other than that, this “celebrity” meme has as much reality as all the other toxic memes discussed here previously.
He goes on to revisit the little flare-up in the DRC:
Ironically, it was one of these softer, Oprah-style moments that did her in. “My husband is not the secretary of state, I am,” Mrs. Clinton snapped, after a Congolese student at a town hall meeting (also sometimes called a “townterview”) asked what Mr. Clinton thought about an issue. That snippy — but totally inconsequential — comment grabbed more attention that anything else she said or did in Africa. Congo may be burning. Trouble may be brewing in Kenya. Liberia may be heroically emerging from gruesome circus to model democracy. But in the end, Africa isn’t so interesting to most Americans. Hillary Clinton still is.
I will attempt to prevent steam from coming out of my ears at the Oprah comparison. PLEASE! The hallmark of a Hillary interview (or debate, for that matter) – maybe I should call it a “Hillmark” – is that she actually can take a question no one has pre-screened and answer it – often in great, organized detail, i.e. she is capable of thinking on her feet. That it was unfortunate for this incident to overshadow the very important work Hillary was doing in Africa, yes I agree, but Gettleman does nothing to right the course of the ship. She stood up in front of likely perpetrators of horrendous violence and called for tribunals. I trembled for her. She stood stock still. She insisted upon flying to an immensely dangerous place, Goma, in order to make contact with refugees in one of the scariest places on earth.
As for that last sentence, well it seems to me that among Hillary’s reasons for this trip was to make Africa visible to Americans. In Angola she said she hoped Americans would have a chance to see that country via television coverage of her trip. Well, THAT didn’t happen! Yes, Hillary is very interesting to Americans. It would be nice if the media would feed that interest with truth and balance about her plans and activities. They are monumental.
Great job, Still4Hill!
When I read that NYT commentary my first thought was “wtf? Am I missing something? What the hell is this guy doing following her on an 11 day trip in Africa when he has no idea what a camera spray or bilateral is!” I’m a bit surprised he added that in his article- it’s almost like he’s PROUD of it as if to say “I’m too good for this sort of thing” and hence his reference to Oprah.
I’m glad you had the same reaction I did because I was beginning to think there was something wrong with me in that so many of the media write-ups lately have been trash- in the beginning of her trip she seemed to get good, relatively balanced, more substantive coverage [at least by American standards given the most Americans don’t give a rats ass about foreign policy]and then towards the end, it all went to hell- all the anti-Clintons came sliming out of the woodwork.
And I thought the same thing as you on another point- I’d HAPPILY go to Africa to cover her trip, sans pay, sleep in a hammock with a mosquito net, just for the *honor* of doing so and I’d sure as hell do my homework before I got there!
Given his apparent background in some conflict zones, one would think he could come up with something a bit more substantive.
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[…] UPDATE: The Department of Homegirl Security also takes issue with some of the bizarre post-Africa commentary masquerading as journalism- you can check it out here. […]
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Thanks for the pingback, Homegirl! (Awesome new avatar!)
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No need to thank me for the pingback! Nobody rebuts this stuff better than you!
As for the avatar- I told you I was going to use a photo of her with her “campaign hair!” LOL. sizzle, sizzle, sizzle 😉
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Fierce and sexah!
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Still4Hill,
I hope you can send a link to this post to the author of that article you are critiquing. He really needs to read your rebuttal more than we do. Unfortunately, the real culprits out there are not going to be reading Homegirl Security or Stacy’s blog to get their facts straight!
So, we just have to do what New Yorkers do when we want to get someone’s attention: Give those Hillary-bashing hack MSM reporters a smack on the arm and say, “Hey! Guess what? You’re LYING again!” 🙂
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Done! They should know that we are onto their brand of journaltainment.
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This comment by Lou Dobbs last night re: Rahm Emanuel’s control of the spin reminded me to mention something here:
DOBBS: He is quoted, by the way, Rahm Emanuel is quoted more than the president of the United States. What’s going on? I mean, is he in charge of this –every initiative here?
Yes, Lou, Rahm is in charge of every initiative that gets talked about in the press and HOW it gets talked about.
So, I am reminded to say once again that we are looking at what they call a “managed press”. This is no different than the dreaded “state-run” press that is put into place upon the ascension of every authoritarian government in the world. We had this also under Bush, so it’s not unique to BO. But I just needed to be reminded of this.
Yes, the articles we are seeing about the “marginalization” of Hillary who is perpetually “in the shadow” of The One is part of the orchestrated spin dictated by the BO Admin. to the “managed press” (read: “propaganda machine”). Thanks to Lou (again) for illuminating the complicity of the MSM in this.
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Rahm Emmanuel was a horrible choice for Chief of Staff- he’s divisive and he harbors a real dislike/resentment of the Democratic base (ie. liberals).
NYC Girl- are you saying that you think the MSM’s theme of ‘Hillary in the Shadows’ etc. is ultimately directly from Rahm or are you saying it’s similar to how Rahm does things? I’m not sure I believe Rahm is behind this simply because I have a hard time seeing Tina Brown, Amy Suskind, Bonnie Erbe doing anything BO’s admin. wants- at least not *consciously*.
I’ll be honest, while I understand people like MoDo don’t like Hillary and thus their crappy coverage, I still am not understanding why Tina Brown and Bonnie Erbe and others who were/are supposedly rather pro-Hillary, are portraying Hillary as a victim…I like to connect the dots and I’m still missing a few- I want to know who/what this all started with 😉
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Well, I had forgotten for a minute about the “managed press”. But when Lou Dobbs made that comment, I remembered — we had a managed press under Bush, and I just hadn’t thought about it yet since BO hasn’t been in office that long. But yes, I am saying that the pattern of “Hillary in the shadows” articles and reports now seems to be emanating from the top. There’s too much similarity in the theme here and from too many different reporters and writers for that to be just a coincidence. Whether it’s Rahm or someone else actually giving out the script, I don’t know. But clearly there’s some serious spin control re: Hillary’s activities and image.
During the primaries, I have heard that the Obots used to get regular talking points from Obot central. They would all go on the Hillary blogs and political websites en masse saying the exact same things at the exact same time. People would just wonder what the hell was going on. Eventually it became obvious that they were being handed a script and they were repeating what they had been told to say by their Obot masters. A BO-supporting friend of mine recently forwarded an email to me that was sent to the base by Axelrove. It contained the requisite talking points on the health care debate that BO’s supporters are supposed to spout.
So it is with the “managed press”, although on a much higher level since it’s now the Obot kings in the White House who are giving out the daily talking points — which Rahm literally does, according to Begala and Carville. And there now seems to be a script out there regarding “Hillary in the shadows”. The Repubs started it and the O Admin. picked up on it — Gibbs did it right away in a presser. I’ve mentioned that to you before when you asked a similar question on why it would be worth it to BO to alienate Hillary’s supporters.
It’s nothing new that former Hillaryites are now BO’s champions and taking digs at HRC. That started during the primaries and shows no signs of letting up. And I don’t know about the other people you mentioned, but Amy Siskind supports Palin now. That’s well-documented. So, why not slam Hillary? Apart from that, it’s difficult to go against the White House’s wishes and hold onto your job!
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NYC Girl- I don’t doubt how Obama’s camp used a coordinated script which ended up with the grassroots and pundits, etc. to undermine Hillary during the campaign, and I certainly don’t put something like that past Emmanuel but I’m having a hard time seeing what BO gets out of Hillary being undermined and weakened by his own people? And I spoke to Laura Rozen over at foreign policy’s ‘The Cable’ and she has great inside contacts and she seemed to think the ‘Hillary in the shadows’ theme was not orchestrated by the WH.
I mentioned this before in passing here I think but a name I would see frequently in those “powerless Hillary” articles and which *purported* to be more serious and not ‘fluff’ (for example, the Ben Smith Politico article which seemed to really start this theme in the MSM- of course Dick Morris was singing this tune in Wingnuttia) is Aaron David Miller who worked for 6 SOS’s and worked in the Clinton admin. – it almost seems like he harbors some sort of grudge because he is always quoted as one of the few (and sometimes only) named source in these articles and he is constantly saying the special envoys weaken her, she is the least powerful SOS in years, blah blah blah. The media clearly would quote him over and over again because of his resume in order to legitimize what has been nothing other than a rumor- and one Hillary herself refuted.
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I would LOVE a bumper sticker that read “Don’t Blame me, I voted for Hillary”
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Stacy,
I hope I am not being harsh here — you seem to be genuinely puzzled by the lack of loyalty on the part of alleged Hillary supporters. But did you really expect someone who has “inside contacts” to admit that the O Admin. is diminishing the stature of their own SOS? Call me cynical, but the Obies had ZERO respect for Hillary during the primaries, and that pattern is holding form, from the looks of it. I’ll say that again: They have no respect for Hillary. They need her, but they don’t respect her. You can ask them, and of course they will deny that. I’ve said this to Hillaryites before, and I will say it again: Obama supporters are not our friends.
And I point once again to the arrogant man who walked into one of his primary victory celebrations to the tune of Jay-Z’s rap“I Got 99 Problems But A Bitch Ain’t One” and who brushed Hillary off of his shoulders. Old habits die hard.
[Cue The Rolling Stones singing “Under My Thumb”]
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And gave her the finger! That’s why I get the creeps when he touches her. He needs to keep his hand off her!
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Here’s another piece of Obot spin masquerading as pro-Clinton reporting, from the liberal website The American Prospect:
Keeping Up With the Clintons
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=keeping_up_with_the_clintons
Here’s a typical quote from this article:
“In the latest chapter of their very public love story, Hillary’s political career, Bill has been asked to do something potentially even more difficult than keeping his pants on: zip his lip.”
[h/t to staunch Hillaryite Toni for this link]
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Thanks for the link, NYC Girl. Although this article does get off to a bumpy start, when it finally hits 3rd gear, it is actually pretty sopt-onto what I thought about the incidents of the NK-Africa trips. In fact, Ms. Martin is a bit more egalitarian that MY take, which was of Bill acting as an extension of Hillary.
In the end, though, I draw the line – and Ms. Martin does also – at where the story invades the Clinton marriage. Martin is skeptical, at the beginning of this article, of Bill’s level of devotion. That warm-up to an otherwise balanced argument could/should have been redacted since there really is no question about how Bill feels. All you need to do is watch videos of Bill on talk and interview shows and at speaking engagements. HE is ALWAYS the one bringing her name up. He does this without any hint from the host/interviewer that her name ought to be involved at all. Bill cannot stop himself from talking about Hillary. If you have ever been in love, you know that is a sure sign. It’s adorable, and I love it. Ms. Martin needed that extra information. Had she had it, her article could have begun as smoothly as it later rolled out.
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[…] , here, here, here, here, (This is getting boring, isn’t it? Sorry!), and (one more time) here on this blog. Ann Curry should have known how old and irrelevant the questions about […]
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[…] Diplomacy: Hillary-Style The Cleavage Card […]
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[…] Cross-posted at The Department of Homegirl Security. […]
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