Clinton's Experience On World Stage: "Scant Evidence"

With a debate raging over which presidential candidate has the most experience and best judgment on world affairs, the Chicago Tribune examines Sen. Hillary Clinton's record:

Pressed in a CNN interview this week for specific examples of foreign policy experience that has prepared her for an international crisis, Clinton claimed that she "helped to bring peace" to Northern Ireland and negotiated with Macedonia to open up its border to refugees from Kosovo. She also cited "standing up" to the Chinese government on women's rights and a one-day visit she made to Bosnia following the Dayton peace accords.

Earlier in the campaign, she and her husband claimed that she had advocated on behalf of a U.S. military intervention in Rwanda to stop the genocide there.

But her involvement in the Northern Ireland peace process was primarily to encourage activism among women's groups there, a contribution that the lead U.S. negotiator described as "helpful" but that an Irish historian who has written extensively about the conflict dismissed as "ancillary" to the peace process.

The Macedonian government opened its border to refugees the day before Clinton arrived to meet with government leaders. And her mission to Bosnia was a one-day visit in which she was accompanied by performers Sheryl Crow and Sinbad, as well as her daughter, Chelsea, according to the commanding general who hosted her.

Whatever her private conversations with the president may have been, key foreign policy officials say that a U.S. military intervention in Rwanda was never considered in the Clinton administration's policy deliberations. Despite lengthy memoirs by both Clintons and former Secretary of State and UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright, any advice she gave on Rwanda had not been mentioned until her presidential campaign.

CNN, meanwhile, examined her statements case-by-case:

Northern Ireland

"I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland," Clinton said on CNN's American Morning on Wednesday. Video Watch more of Clinton's comments on the race »

A Washington Post blogger accused Clinton in January of exaggerating her involvement in Northern Ireland.

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But former Democratic Senate majority leader George Mitchell, who was a U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland, told CNN that while Clinton was not directly involved in negotiations, she did play a helpful role in bringing in women's groups that made a difference.

Mitchell is a Democratic superdelegate and has not publicly endorsed Clinton or Obama.

Rep. Peter King, a Republican from New York, was also involved in the process. He recalls one late-night meeting with former President Bill Clinton, Sen. Clinton and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.

"There was a discussion of how the IRA would decommission its weapons. And I know that Sen. Clinton was part of that meeting," King said.

Kosovo

"I negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo," she said on CNN's American Morning.

In May of 1999, she was in Macedonia visiting refugee camps near the Kosovo border and meeting with Macedonia's president and prime minister.

Sources with knowledge of her visit say she discussed the refugees' plight with those leaders. It's not clear how much she helped since CNN reported at the time that Macedonia reopened its border to Kosovar refugees before Clinton's visit.

China

"I've been standing up against, you know, the Chinese government over women's rights and standing up for human rights in many different places," she said on CNN's American Morning.

During a 1995 visit to Beijing, at a time when her husband's administration was trying to press China on human rights, Sen. Clinton made a speech condemning abuses.
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"No one should be forced to remain silent for fear of religious or political persecution, arrest, abuse or torture," she said.

But a former National Security Council official in the Clinton administration says Clinton didn't attend NSC meetings. So while her experience is extensive, she rarely carried an official portfolio.

Comments

[ForRichardorPoorer]

As far as experience goes. Our career politicians have run this country into the ground. Over the past four decades this country has been involved in "misstatements" leading to war on numerous occasions. We are trillions and trillions in debt, and corruption goes all the way to the white house. The mentality is , "whoever has the deepest pockets wins! Our current leadership claims they have more experience. Well, u can have a thousand experiences or one experience a thousand times. Hillary is owned. I would rather start new.

[NYRalf]

This, not "his"

[NYRalf]

She opened his Pandora's box, now let the vetting begin.

[ObamaEdwards]

See the lady in the pretty suit standing next to the president? Can you see her? She's waving... Yeah, there you go. The blond in the powder blue suit.
THAT is Clinton's experience, in a nutshell. And you can't gain foreign policy experience by OSMOSIS.

[nazgul]

Oh, c'mon. She's has extensive familiarity with dozens of cuisines.

[kishaaann]

OH NO.. I cant believe it..

[iPolitics]

Zero experience. For weeks I requested one example of her executive or commander in chief experience. None of her supporters came up with one.

[thegreatgiginthesky]

Her experience was from sitting beside Bill. All his experience was trasferred to her via osmosis.

[furion]

They shouldn't feel bad. Not even Hillary's advisors could come up with one. Remember the pregnant 10 second pause last week when asked what Hillary's 3am experience is?

[PTTY]

Perhaps more germane is Bill's experience prior to his candidacy and election:

1992 Campaign and Election

Clinton had a lot of competition for the Democratic nomination, and many of those candidates claimed to be the alternative who offered a change from the party's past and a chance to beat the incumbent president, George Bush. Even before the New Hampshire primary in early 1992 Clinton had suffered many embarrassments and difficulties. He came from a state that was small and was regarded by many as unsophisticated and economically underdeveloped.

Critics felt he had no experience on the federal level and no understanding of foreign policy. Clinton in turn insisted that his strengths lay in the fact that he was not connected to a Washington power base and therefore had a fresh perspective to bring to government.

http://www.answers.com/topic/bill-clinton

[VSamuels]

The media has wholly contributed to reporting what Hillary has said, rather than doing its damn job and sending out some of its reporters to come up with the information that some posters here have written. In essence, the media has abandon being about the actual reporting of news---unless it is car/trains/airplanes--or school shooting/missing blonde women and mudslides/hurricanes/tornadoes. In other words, for some inexcusable reason they are passive-agressives; who wait for the stories to come along which creates the greatest sense of impact to twist and turn their raw profits.

And, in the case of Hillary Clinton, she is a media gold mine; they simply do not gain anything by reporting the facts about her; otherwise the largely uneducated public would not turn on daily to watch them show her life like a soap opera. Hillary Clinton is good for the MSM's ratings and for them this is vastly far more important than to point out to the American public that she is not the political animal she professes to be in public.

At some point, the MSM simply decided that the 'tabloid' model of reporting was the wave of the future for ratings and abandoned most, if not all of its own vital role in society to actually inform the public about the facts. Today, the MSM is simply a comglomerate of 'entertainers' some obviously better than some others, but collectively their value to the MSM is to be provacative, tnot factually accurate. Otherwise, this same MSM would have ended Hillary's early self-promotion of her so-called '35 years' a year ago.

The MSM is selling news, not reporting news.

Those in the MSM basically decided that Bill Clinton, and by in large Hillary Clinton was a good theme story, and they weren't about to destroy something which was destined to make them turn a few bucks: The Democrats are overwhelming female and the MSM had convenient and profitable reasons to push this corrupt and vile women as qualified.