Hillary Clinton: Why She is Uniquely Qualified as Secretary of State
Its been a long road for Senator Hillary Clinton. The road has led to her consideration as Secretary of State in a world full of uncertainties. Article after article, pundit after pundit describe why she is not the right choice (see Politico today, NYT, Huffington Post, the cable nets and many other sources.) In the aftermath of the campaign, people have forgotten that Hillary Clinton is more than who she was as a presidential candidate. I realized I was guilty of this too. The most significant thing I had to remember after all that has happened is who Hillary Clinton is to the rest of the world. To the rest of the world, Hillary Clinton is the truest leader of women's rights on earth.
Christie Vilsak, the former First Lady of Iowa and founder of the Iowa Initiative to Reduce Unwanted Pregnancies, says this of Senator Clinton: "She is the woman everyone is looking to. She is a model for women aross the world. All those women out there are looking to see how she reacts. If she doesn't do this, what does it say about the rest of the U.S.?" Mrs. Vilsak went on to say that in Liberia, a Liberian Cabinet Minister said that Hillary Clinton has changed the world women live in and has created and presented an image to the women of this world.
Senator Clinton has led the cause of women's rights since her early days as first lady, when she travelled to the Summit in Tokyo in July of 1993. As Gwen Ifill reported then, "Hillary Clinton Wins Friends in Japan." Ifill observed that,
"in a country where the courtship and wedding of an independent-minded woman to Crown Prince Naruhito held people in thrall for weeks, Hillary Rodham Clinton is also viewed -- favorably -- as an independent sort. At Waseda University today, the very mention of her name drew murmurs of approval. And when she slipped into a meeting hall, most in the otherwise reserved crowd craned for a look at her blond head bobbing in a sea of shiny black hair, and burst into applause."
In 1995, reporter Patrick Tyler wrote of Hillary Clinton,
"Speaking more forcefully on human rights than any American dignitary has on Chinese soil, Hillary Rodham Clinton catalogued a devastating litany of abuse that has afflicted women around the world today and criticized China for seeking to limit free and open discussion of women's issues here.
"'It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights," Mrs. Clinton told the Fourth World Conference on Women assembled here."'It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls,' Mrs. Clinton said, or 'when women and girls are sold into slavery or prostitution for human greed.'
"'It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small,' she continued, or 'when thousands of women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.'"
At first, it appeared that President-elect Obama was trying to bring in Senator Clinton as a "team of rivals" Secretary of State. But on deeper reflection, perhaps the Obama transition team is showing the discipline the campaign showed. If global women's rights is an issue, which it most certainly is, Senator Clinton is matched by no one in her past words and deeds in advance of this cause. And she has the bona fides to match any other contender on foreign policy issues not related to human rights. To pick her would send a message indeed: that the U.S. is a leader on women's rights across the world.
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Hillary Clinton would be just as qualified, if not more than, Condoleeza Rice when she got the job.
I beleive her experience makes her even more qualified.
The question that I am surprised at is the question of whether she can work well with Barack. The fact is that if things go poorly it will look bad for both Obama and Clinton but worse for her, and she knows this. If she gets fired her career is pretty much over which I'm sure won't happen. What will happen is that we'll end up with a very strong White House, especially in the diplomatic department, and she'll be in a better position to become the 2016 Democratic Pres. than she was this year. As far as Clinton retreads, I guess it is poor judgment to bring in people that have experience in an administration when America was prosperous.
With all due respect for the great cause of defense of women's rights, this is far the main issue in foreign policy, no?
We want someone who is not going to start crazy wars (where everybody, women and others), suffer.
The economic power house of the world will be China in the coming years.
It's good to establish good cooperative grounds with it. It's a first goal. Then, the women's right is an important secondary goal, that can be kept in mind from the very beginning, but that has not to derail primary goals.
Hope Hilary can do both and more. More is needed. I think the cabinet team will surprise us by their achievement, and that is because, it''s like a music band: with a good director, they will produce amazing things. Good surprises are not over. Let Barak make his team.
This is change you can believe in alright. A bunch of Clintonista retreads. The problem facing Obama is picking anyone more incompetent than himself. That's a daunting task. He did it with Biden, but that doesn't leave many more.
Can BHO do anything right in your eyes? I doubt it!
The most important issue on how the SoS will be taken is understanding what Obama doctrine will be. Its not upto Clinton to define that, its upto her to execute it, she showed clearly she is a bureaucratic wonk, let Obama do the defining of policy and Clinton will be great in executing those policies.
Assuming everything Jennifer Donahue says is true, she still is not qualified for for SoS.
It requires a skilled and experienced negotiator to promote the goals of the President and the United States. Someone with no other agenda other than to carry out the Presidents policies in the mode of say James A. Baker. Nothing in her experience suggests that she would be good at this.
Secondly, it is also an administrative position as well with a vast bureaucracy in need of a very competent manager. Considering on how poorly her presidential campaign was run, I believe her to be again unqualified. She started out with money, name recognition, inevitability, and ran a divisive, incoherent and poorly managed campaign.
A better place for her would be to remain in the senate where she could be quite effective over time.
Who cares about that. Hillary is not right for this
job and I hope the repubs flush her out.
Your estimate of Hillary Clinton's approval rating "around the world" is way, way overblown. I've lived in Canada and England during the Clinton years, and in Australia for the last five. If I had to generalise, I'd say opinon of the Clintons among those I know as well as in the media I've read, sees them as fairly typical, corporate-
You must have alot of republican leaning friends and media then. How did the Clintons get us out of the deficits in the 90s then if they were so corporate favoring when the Bush years were all about helping the rich corporate fatcats loot and destroy the economy here in the process? Just because you bought into that stuff doesnt mean the rest of the world did.
shes uniquely qualified because she can make up the most unique story about sniper fire
anyone could ever think of .....
totally forgetting that it was on video and she would get caught....
wow what a unique crazy individual
Name me one person who has never lied, and you've got a point.
How much thought did Senator Clinton give to women's rights when she voted for and continued to support for many years Bush's war on Iraq? Are all the women and children who have been killed during our invasion and its aftermath sacrificial lambs to the cause of women's right? How much thought did Senator Clinton give to women's and children's rights when she voted again banning cluster bombs? A hawk is not on the side of women and children no matter what she has done on the world stage.
First of all, its easy for you to judge when you were not the senator from a state that was bombed on 911. How many men , women and children died there? I would be looking real hard at what Sadam Husien had in his Arsonal too. Plus she was told and lied to(along with Biden, Kerry, Edwards and alot of others) that it was to force his hand at letting the inspectors finish thier job. The only thing she suported after that was money for the troops.Tho
I think there is an additional reason for appointing Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State that has not been mentioned in the stream of commentary during the last week -- it would almost certainly signal a change in the relative positions of the Departments of State and Defense.
Under the Bush Administration, the Department of Defense has clearly been assigned an expanding leadership role across a wide-range of traditionally non-military foreign policy arenas -- from development assistance to non-military intelligence gathering and analysis. Appointing a politically strong and connected Secretary of State while, perhaps. retaining Republican Robert Gates as a "caretaker" Secretary of Defense would send a strong signal that diplomacy, rather than military muscle-flexing, will once again play the lead role in American Foreign Policy. Sending such a signal to politically influential actors both within the United States and abroad is much more significant than the keeping of political scores among supposed factions within the Democratic Party.
Excellent point! Sometimes change has to be gradual and incremental in order to be effective, otherwise a bloody situation like the French revolution can occur, and none of us, with the exception perhaps of the most radical wing of this country, would want to promote that kind of change.
Carlos Jean-Gilles
Saint Louis, MO
Jennifer,
I'd like to see you complete your argument. You made a good case that Hillary holds unique stature regarding women's rights issues.
OK, I'll concede that point.
Now tell me why progress on women's rights issues is such a powerful key to the ultimate goals of the SoS office. I'm not an expert in that field but I imagine such an argument could be made, as women's rights issues have been linked with other issues such as education, overpopulation, and possibly peace and stability.
So...compl
Part 2
Who controls the gazillion dollar consumer advertizing dollars in the US? Women, that’s who. As it became apparent to corporations that women are the ones who make most of the major and minor purchase decisions in families, corporation started focusing advertising dollars almost exclusively on women. Who made healthcare in the US more patient-centered? Women, that’s who. The women who entered the Med school and started running hospitals and being doctors themselves—that’s who. I can go on and on about the power women in cultures have. The examples are too many to note here.
When women are left out of the debate it is much easier for a tryanical leader to gain and keep power as their only tool for power is force. We know that most women (and some men) approach conflict with reasoning and not aggression. Bringing them into the debate will start the process away from tryany and toward democracy or another form of government the people of these countries really want. Remember when people actual talked about what it would be like of a woman ran the world. Well, when you keep them out of the debate entirely in these countries then you get the polar opposite.
Hardly anyone within my circle bothers to read novel-length postings.
I love your power, Abby! And I fully recognize the power of women. I'm married to a strong-will woman, and I wouldn't change that for the world. Although advancing women's right is a very important issue, it should only be one factor amongst many other important factors in the selection of a secretary of state. This article fails to elaborate on HRC's other attributes, and that is the problem. Your point, however, that if these countries were to show more respect towards women that would go a long way towards closing the chasm that separates us from them is a very powerful one.
Carlos Jean-Gilles
Saint Louis, MO
Part 1
I'll complete it for you. Women (if not oppressed) have an enormous power within any country to make changes.
A. The cultures that most threaten the US economically and/or militarily are Iraq, China and Iran, places where it is no coincidence that women are oppressed.
B. Changes in governing in these countries benefits the US economically and militarily.
C. If it is true that the US voted BO into power to stop US saber rattling, pre-emptive military intervention, and a refusal to engage diplomatically to inspire change in these countries, then we need to inspire change in these countries organically from within in the country. Organic change within these countries is an absolute requirement for our success.
D. One of the best ways to change a country organically this is through the women of the country.
Part 2
How can women change a country? Well the power women have to make changes is enormous. Just look at our recent election…. Who put the first African American in the Whitehouse? Women, that’s who. While we’re all a part of it, it was white suburban women who were the largest voting block for BO in the states he needed to win electoral votes and BO knows this.
OK.
Well done.
Part 2 a
How can women change a country? Well the power women have to make changes is enormous. Just look at our recent election…. Who put the first African American in the Whitehouse? Women, that’s who. While we’re all a part of it, it was white suburban women who were the largest voting block for BO in the states he needed to win electoral votes and BO knows this.
Quoting Mrs Vilsac is not a compelling argument for the claim that Mrs Clinton's support of women's issues is unparalleled. Mrs Vilsac is married to a DLC centrist.
Mrs Clinton was sitting on the board of Walmart when the largest gender discrimination class action suit in the history of such suits was filed (a lawsuit they eventually lost.) She voted for the odious bankrupcy bill, she publicly wags her finger at low income women who have abortions and she was absolutely silent when her husband signed the welfare deformation bill. ALL of these actions and inactions were disproportionately harmful to women. The problem is that the women harmed were almost all low income women, a class the 'centrist' feminists like Mrs Clinton tend to demonize and ignore.
She certainly was brave dodging sniper fire in Sarajevo..
Look, no one is perfect. If that incident were to disqualify her, then BHO's misstatement about fifty-seven states in our country would have disqualified him as president (We all know that BHO knows that there are only fifty states in our country.) In a grueling campaign like the one BHO/HRC went through, however, it's only human to screw up once in a while, especially when lack of sleep catches up to you. What is amazing is that she only screw up on so few occasions. So, please, don't be so derisive about HRC. Thank you.
Carlos Jean-Gilles
Saint Louis, MO
I think you make an excellent point here. I think many of HRC's feminist supporters should be very encouraged by this appointment. I trust they will lobby HRC as SOS and keep women's human rights on the agenda.
I would love to see a Fifth World Conference on Women take place during Obama's presidency and see young feminists who missed out on the first four conferences come and be able to bring their unique brand of feminism to the international policy agenda. HRC could be a huge catalyst for making that happen.
It is encouraging and I think she will be the first SOS that has feminist credentials along with all the other obvious talents and credentials she brings to the table. While I didn't support her for President or VP, and was a bit dubious about her selection as SoS at first, being reminded of her involvement in Beijing and her activism on behalf of women encourages me greatly and gives me hope for the future of women's rights activism at the international level. Having her as SoS will make the 2009 CSW very interesting indeed!!! Yay!
I am a man and a feminist, and I'm doing just that.
Carlos Jean-Gilles
Saint Louis, MO
Great! Keep it up and thanks for the reminder that feminism and feminist issues are human issues and involve both men and women. :-)
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