Before Considering 2012, Departing Gov.'s Options Include TV, Radio, Lecture Circuit, Stumping for GOP
Hillary Clinton: 'Advisor,' team player
by Mark Silva and updated
It's 3 a.m.
The telephone is ringing in the White House.
Wrong number.
The national security line has been set on call-forwarding to the Naval Observatory, the vice president's domain. The crisis hot-lines are ringing on the desks of Richard Holbrooke, special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, George Mitchell, envoy to the Middle East, and Dennis Ross, expert on the Iranian nuclear question.
Right?
Wrong, says Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who campaigned for president with warnings that her Democratic rival, Barack Obama, wasn't ready for that late-night call in crisis. Now confronting an array of world crises as the nation's chief diplomat, Clinton is asserting her command , and Obama's competence, on several international fronts.
"The United States is back, and we're ready to lead,'' Clinton said this morning, in an interview on NBC News' Meet the Press today.
"Part of what we've done is organize ourselves so we can concentrate on many important issues at the same time,'' Clinton said. "I think it would be diplomatic malpractice not to have people of experience handling some of our most difficult challenges on a day-to-day basis...''
The Bush administration focused so much on some issues, such as Iraq, she said, that much of the rest of the world felt as if they were "second tier... The United States cannot solve all of the problems of the world, but the rest of the world can't solve them without the United States.''
She was asked about a recent comment that she may have broken her elbow, but not her "larynx.''
"The president is the president, and the president is responsible for setting policy. We have a great relationship. I see him usually several times a week, at least one on one,'' she said. "I am the chief advisor on foreign policy, but the president makes the decisions.... At the end of the day, it is the president who has to set and articulate policy... But I know very well that a team that works together is going to do a better job for America.''
On the domestic front as well, the former first lady who fought for healthcare reform during her husband's administration, said the president will succeed -- he will achieve reform, she said. And he did the right thing, she said, on that thorny matter of Harvard Professor Henry Gates' arrest in Cambridge in his own home.
"He's going to have a beer with Professor Gates and Officer Crowley,'' Clinton said. "That's leadership by example, and I commend him for that.''.
Still the quetion remains: What about her?
When will the nation see a woman as president?
"It's going to take the right woman,'' Clinton said. "II'm certainly hoping it happens in my lifetime...
"I am convinced, and I don't know if she is in elective office right now, or if she is preparing to run for office, but there is a woman who I am hoping is '' preparing for the job. Asked about Republican Sarah Palin's comment that Clinton had cracked the glass ceiling and now it' was Palin's chance to break it, she was asked if Palin offers that candidate/? "I'm out of politics,'' Clinton said. "I would wish her well in her private life.''
Will Clinton run again?
"The answer is no, I don't know how many... I say, no, never, not at all,'' she said. "I have absolutely no belief in my mind that that is going to happen, that I have any interest in that happening.''
The story for the world to know, she suggested, is that a team of former rivals is working toether: ""I think that's the story. This is how democracy works... I've moved on. It's very important to move on.''
(See the remarks about her future in the video below, and read more of the interview after the jump:)
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
What has Obama proved to her as president that she hadn't appreciated as a rival candidate, Clinton was asked. "I always had a very healthy respect for his intelligence, for his world view, for his understanding of the complexity that we face,'' she said. "Now, having worked with him for six months, now what I see is his decisiveness, his discipline, his approach to difficult problems. ''
"I'm here to say,'' Clinton said of Obama, "as somebody who spent an enormous time and energy running against him, I think his experience in office has been incredible. ''
What an array of challenges they face.
Clinton said this about North Korea's provocative missile testing and other actions in a news interview on Monday: "Maybe it's the mother in me or the experience that I've had with small children and unruly teenagers and people who are demanding attention --don't give it to them. They don't deserve it.''
(As a mother of one, she raised the question of which other "unruly" children she was speaking of here.)
The North Korean government responded to the secretary of state's comments rather curtly: "We cannot regard Mrs. Clinton as a funny lady. Sometimes she looks like a silly schoolgirl.''
Clinton laughed like one when read the retaliatory comment this morning, during an hour-long interview. But there isn't anything funny about the situation in Pyongyang -- "destabilizing'' for the region, was the secretary's way of putting it.
Is North Korea a threat to the United States?
"That is unlikely,'' Clinton said, speaking of U.S. defenses and North Korea's limited abilities. "But they are a threat to our friends and allies... Therefore, they trigger a response from us.''
Is Iran's reelected regime illegitimate?
"That's really for the Iranians to decide,'' Clinton said, suggesting that a nation with a cultural history such as Iran's "deserves better than what they're getting.''
What about "resetting'' that Russian button?
Clinton was read Biden's recent published comments about Russia's situation, with leaders there "clinging to something of the past that is not sustainable.'' Clinton said: "We wanted to reset our relations with Russia... We know that is not easily (achieved.)''
"We view Russia as a great power,'' she said. "Every country has their challenges. We have our challenges... As we reset our relationship, we are very clearly saying that Russia cannot have a 20th Century sphere of influence'' in its region. "What we're seeing here is the beginning of the resetting of that relationship.
"We have continuing questions about some of their policies. They have continuing questions about some of ours.''
With a surge of forces underway in Afghanistan, has this become President Obama's "war of choice?'' Gregory asked.
"We know that the threat to the United States, and in fact those who plotted and carried out the horrific attack against our country on 9./11 have not been killed or captured,'' Clinton replied. "So the president's goal is to dismantle and eventually destroy and defeat al Qaeda.''
Is a war with the Taliban a good use of U.S. power?
"Al Qaeda is supported by and uses its extremist allies, like elements within the Taliban and other extremist groups... to extend its reach, to be proxies for some of its attacks... In order to really go after al Qaeda, to uproot it and destroy it, we have to go after those who were providing al Qaeda safe haven....
"To withdraw our presence or to keep it on the low-level which had been demonstrated ineffective,'' she said, would send the message that the U.S. was "leaving the field to them.'' The Taliban is "now under tremendous pressure,'' she said, "and I think that is in America's interest.''
Health Care Piles On Before Congressional Recess
Congress lurches toward the August recess with an agenda full of health care and spending bills. NPR's David Welna talks to host Liane Hansen about what's expected to happen in the coming week.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar