As IF Times

link Can John Kerry top Hillary Clinton as secretary of state? – The Week.

The notion that Hillary Clinton is deserved of praise and admiration for her term in office as Secretary of State is like a parent at their 10 year old’s music recital jumping to rapturous applause after a tortuous 3 note rendition of Amazing Grace.   At best, it’s tone deafness and at worst, it’s revisionism.   Other adoring parents will likely join in with the swooning admiration of the special and talented performance.  On the other hand,  passers by outside the school could easily mistake the sounds as cats being made into violin strings.

The state of journalism has devolved into the more commercially successful direction of being fans  and apologists for favored politicians and news-makers.   Like Joan Rivers at the Oscar red carpet parade, politicians are treated as celebrities known as much for their shoes, their hairstyles and their dates rather than for any genuine talent for their jobs.  “Hillary! Hillary! Was that an Armani pantsuit you were wearing while watching the Benghazi riots?”  Or, “How do you stay so slim after logging all those flight miles?”   Some may remember years ago a “celebrity” by the name of Rula Lenska, internationally known and acclaimed actress that no one had ever heard of.   She did a number of Alberto VO-5 commercials and was billed as famous….well,  for being famous.

Hillary inherited that mantle from Ms. Lenska.  Hillary became “internationally known and acclaimed diplomat”.  During her time as Secretary of State, there were constant photo ops of Hillary de-planing in some area of conflict in the world, or huddling at some microphone laden meeting tables with goofy looking politicians.   If nothing else, at least these goofy politicians took the time out from their life and death conflicts for these photo ops.  How often do you get to meet with a rock star? “Hey, Mohammed, turn on channel 5, I’m on TV with Hillary Clinton!”

But after the staged photo ops and earnest speeches, the fighting typically resumed and mayhem continued.   She used the same playbook as the ex UN secretary Kofi Annan who was famous for his standard line of “both sides must show tolerance” especially as it applied to one sided conflicts.   If absolutely nothing at all of significance was resolved because of Hillary’s term in office, that would be acceptable, since the bar set for political fixes is low anyway.  But the fiasco that was Benghazi, the subsequent fake narrative explaining the incident and the kabuki-like congressional questioning should give real journalists pause before they anoint her as a rock star politician.

It’s as if you took your car into a mechanic who then allows it to be vandalized and destroyed but then explains it away by talking about the features of the new Corvette.  Journalists today allow that kind of misdirection and obfuscation so politicians are not held accountable by their actions.  Just the other day, Hillary was interviewed jointly with the President on the hard hitting news show, CBS’s 60 minutes.  It may as well have been Ryan Seacrest doing an exit interview on an American Idol contestant.

Diplomacy can be a tough gig and as described by Will Rogers, it consists of saying “good dog” until you can find a rock.  It means offering all kinds of empty platitudes and obsequious praise to tyrants and nincompoops, so the ability to speak elliptically is a desired talent.  On the basis of that skill-set, Hillary is indeed the Mick Jagger of politics.

link Kofi Annan’s Legacy Threatened by Syria’s Violence – NYTimes.com.

I’m sure most people in the world didn’t even know that Kofi Annan had a legacy to preserve.  They may vaguely recognize the name as the figurehead secretary general of the U.N. for a number of years.  The article quotes colleagues in describing his main attributes, “…an engaging personality, ability to convey empathy and a forceful advocate of basic human rights…”  In addition, supporters say,

“…He’s a very experienced diplomat and he’s very good at getting on with people,” Mr. Mortimer said in a telephone interview. “He’s somebody who’s difficult to have a row with. He actually had a paperweight on his desk with the slogan: ‘Diplomacy is the art of letting the other guy have it your way… ”

There’s nothing in the promo that says anything about success.  The characteristics used to describe Mr. Annan can as easily be attributed to Mr. Rogers, my 4th grade teacher Miss Klassen or the gal at the Burger King down the street.  I don’t know who is responsible for embellishing the legacy of Mr. Annan, but any pretensions that he has one at all, much less one to be proud of, is pure revisionist fantasy.  A very quick look at the website, www.warsintheworld.com will show that currently, there are dozens if not multiple dozens of armed conflicts with their attendant human rights transgressions going on in the world right now.  (It’s amusing enough that someone keeps track of this stuff).  The record of the U.N.’s success at enforcing human rights worldwide is dubious at best.

So, which part of Annan’s legacy is in danger?   Sure he’s had an improbable climb to his exalted position, from humble beginnings as a tour guide to defender of human rights for the world.   I guess he was the right guy for the job.  We’ll agree that when trying to intervene during armed conflicts, we do need a calming voice to exhort ‘both sides to show restraint’, even when the conflict is laughingly lopsided.  Such is presently the case in Syria now when government forces are cavalierly executing and torturing their own citizens.  The victims have to show some restraint from bleeding and dying  if the conflict can be resolved peacefully.   Or in the case of many African tribal wars, where victims have to be more considerate by not having limbs chopped off.

No rational person can blame Annan,  or the U.N. for that matter,  for their inability to stop wars.  Warfare at some level is part of the human condition from the first time someone figured out how to swing a stick.   But let’s not pretend that Annan, like his successor Ban Ki Moon are anything but bureaucrats who are installed for political reasons to convey some sense of moral authority to the U.N.  They may not actually do anything, but at least they express moral outrage.  Sort of like Gary Bettman.  People such as Annan, Ban Ki Moon  and most all bureaucrats are fortunate that the pay regime at the U.N. is based on effort and not on real results as in most legitimate organizations.  If it was based on results, he’d have been better off in the tour guide business.