Tough Act To Follow
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.