Hillary raises objections to Arizona’s immigration law.
On today’s Meet the Press, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked about Arizona’s new immigration law. Hillary raised several potential problems with the law and said that as currently written it promotes racial profiling.
Here is the transcript of her exchange with host David Gregory:
QUESTION: Another area that has become a domestic political debate over immigration has also taken on some international ramifications. Mexico, because of the law – the stringent law against – the anti-immigration law passed in Arizona, has issued a pretty unusual alert to its own citizens traveling to Arizona. I’ll put it up on the screen. This is the alert – a travel alert over Arizona immigration law. This is how the USA Today reported it on Wednesday: “The country warned that the state’s adoption of a strict immigration enforcement law has created ‘a negative political environment from migrant communities and for all Mexican visitors.’ ‘It must be assumed that every Mexican citizen may be harassed and questioned without further cause at any time,’ according to the foreign ministry.”
The president, President Calderon, with whom you will meet soon, has talked about criminalizing – this law criminalizes a largely social and economic phenomenon of migration. This is a pretty big shot across the bow to America here.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, it is. And I think if you look at it, again, you have a lot of unanswered questions. This law, which is clearly a result of the frustration that people in Arizona and their elected officials feel about the difficulty of enforcing the law along our border and preventing the continued immigration of people who are not documented, but on the other hand, it is written so broadly that if you were visiting in Arizona and you had an accent and you were a citizen from my state of New York, you could be subjected to the kind of inquiry this law permits.
QUESTION: Do you think it invites profiling, racial profiling?
SECRETARY CLINTON: I don’t think there’s any doubt about that, because clearly, as I understand the way the law is being explained, if you’re a legal resident, you still have to carry papers. Well, how is a law enforcement official supposed to know? So, again, we have to try to balance the very legitimate concerns that Americans – not just people in Arizona but across the country have about safe and secure borders, about trying to have comprehensive immigration reform, with a law that I think does what a state doesn’t have the authority to do, try to impose their own immigration law that is really the province of the federal government.
QUESTION: That is important. Do you think this law will not stand up legally?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don’t want to offer a legal opinion. I think I’ll leave that to the Justice Department. But I know the Attorney General of Arizona has raised questions about the legality. And you’re right; we have a visit from President Calderon coming up, a state visit. He’s a very important partner to us on trying to stop illegal activity along our border – the importation of drugs, of arms, of human beings – all of the crime that that’s associated with. And we believe that he has really done the best he can under very difficult circumstances to get this under control. We don’t want to make his life any harder either. We want to try to support him in what has been a courageous campaign against the drug traffickers.
What they’re saying about Hillary Clinton – 04/25/10
Every week I’m taking a look at some of the more interesting and sometimes off-beat comments the world media has to say about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Here are a few choice excerpts for this week’s report –
What Hillary Clinton Didn’t Say
By Marjorie Arons-Barron
The premise is important – the idea that, if troubled nations abide by the rule of law and have dynamic economies, they can ameliorate the conditions that terrorists can exploit to advance their causes. Everywhere you turn, even where military action is on-going, the success of United States outcomes depends on how we help others develop their governance and human infrastructure.
This was the theme again and again at the annual State Department briefing held Monday in Washington with a group of editorialists from the National Conference of Editorial Writers.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the point person to help Obama make the case for these initiatives in the FY2011 federal budget. Convincing editorial writers from around the country should matter. But, in contrast to her predecessors who for years have shown up annually to field questions and advance their agendas, Madame Secretary stiffed the National Conference of Editorial Writers (including this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Dallas Morning News) without explanation, failing for the second time to show up as scheduled. In doing so, she turned her back on an important opportunity to get the word out about what United States diplomacy is trying to achieve and what’s at stake.
Marjorie Arons-Barron Blog 04/20/10
It’s Not Just the Usual Suspects Taking Potshots at Israel
By Clifford D. May
The cruelest cut in recent days was made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who called on Israel to “continue building momentum toward a comprehensive peace by demonstrating respect for the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians, stopping settlement activity, and addressing the humanitarian needs in Gaza.” She implored Israeli leaders “to refrain from unilateral statements and actions that could undermine trust or risk prejudicing the outcome of talks.”
When Clinton was a U.S. senator representing the state of New York, she seemed to appreciate the existential threat Israel faces day after day. When she was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, she seemed to grasp that, as a matter of both principle and policy, the United States needs to stand up to its enemies and stand up for its allies.
But as President Obama’s secretary of state, Clinton has conducted Middle East diplomacy in a way that can be described as, at best, lacking coherence. At worst — borrowing a phrase from scholar Bernard Lewis — she is helping make America appear “harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.” How can any good come of that?
National Review Online 04/22/10
Hillary Clinton again says she’s tired
By Laura Rozen
Hillary Clinton has said several times that while she loves the job, she cannot imagine being Secretary of State beyond one term. Now, she tells Esquire again that she is worn out by the grueling travel schedule of the top envoy job,
“It wears you out,” Clinton told Esquire. “The jet lag, the dry air on planes, the whole ‘If it’s Tuesday, I must be in…’ kind of thing.”
While there have been periodic rumors that Clinton would do everything from run as Obama’s Veep, to head the World Bank to be nominated for SCOTUS, to run for New York governor, if you take her at her word, she may be looking to do what she cares about in promoting women’s and children’s opportunities from private life, perhaps similar to her husband’s role at the Clinton Foundation.
Politico 04/22/10
Obama’s Bad Cop
By Michael Hirsh
Clinton’s played the heavy with Iran, Russia, and even Israel—and her sometimes hawkish views are finding favor with the president.
Clinton is now influencing policy more than she ever has, especially in close partnership with Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Subtly yet unmistakably, her somewhat greater hawkishness is beginning to show up in policy. While Obama’s no slouch at showing displeasure himself, he’s depended on Clinton to hammer Iran (which is becoming a “military dictatorship,” she recently declared, setting the administration’s new tough tone), and to harangue Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his defiance of U.S. demands for a settlement freeze. She also criticized the Russians in their own backyard over Moscow’s work on an Iranian nuclear-power plant. Clinton politely plays down her role as Obama’s bad cop. “I don’t think there’s anything as formal as that,” she says. “With every tough message that I deliver, it is embedded in a much broader context. It’s not, ‘You’re with us or against us.’ It is, ‘We have a lot of business to do.’?”
Newsweek Online 04/23/10
Hillary Clinton: She stoops to conquer
By Rupert Cornwell
One day, of course, Hillary will no longer be Secretary of State. So what then? The surprising answer may be: not a great deal. Political disclaimers should normally be taken with a generous pinch of salt. But in Hillary’s case there is no reason to disbelieve her when she insists she will not run for president again – and when she says she does not see herself sticking in her present job beyond the end Obama’s first term.
By the time election day 2016 rolls around, she will be 69; only Ronald Reagan was as old when he took office. She maintains that she plans a future of writing and teaching. Enoch Powell once said all political careers end in failure. But in Hillary Clinton’s case the observation is true only in that she failed to crack America’s ultimate glass ceiling. As for the rest: high-powered lawyer, First Lady, senator, Secretary of State – if that’s failure, who needs success?
The Independent 04/25/10
What they’re saying about Hillary Clinton – 4/04/10
Every week I’m taking a look at some of the more interesting and sometimes off-beat comments the world media has to say about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Here are a few choice excerpts for this week’s report –
Clinton criticism ‘tempest in a teapot,’ Cannon says
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was expressing her personal opinion when she criticized Canada’s maternal health initiative, not the policy of the Obama administration, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Sunday.
“Mrs. Clinton expressed not her government’s position; she expressed her personal point of view … her personal opinion,” Cannon told CTV’s Question Period.
But in the wake of Clinton’s criticism of the Canadian initiative, a key foreign policy program for the Conservative government going into this summer’s G8 summit, Cannon acknowledged that the Canadian plan may have to be amended.
CTV 04/04/2010
Hillary Clinton’s Meddling
by Peter Wehner
The ideological extremism of the Obama administration keeps popping up on an almost daily basis, like a game of whack-a-mole. The latest example comes to us courtesy of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was in Canada, where she was lecturing Canadians on how they should be more pro-abortion.
Secretary Clinton’s comments were made in the context of the Canadian government’s G8 maternal and child health initiative. According to Clinton: “You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion.”
So here’s a question: can you imagine Henry Kissinger or Dean Acheson ever saying such a thing? Hillary Clinton is Secretary of State; she’s not the president of Planned Parenthood. And for an administration that insists it shouldn’t meddle in the internal affairs of other nations — unless it means making life considerably more difficult for our allies like Honduras and Israel — this is quite remarkable.
Commentary Magazine 04/01/2010
AIPAC’s Embrace of Hillary Clinton: Civility or Stupidity
Clinton’s performance should have surprised no one. As Secretary of State with marching orders from her President, she was merely articulating Mr. Obama’s anti-Israel agenda despite her fuzzy claims of support. Obama’s true feelings regarding Israel were apparent from the early days of his campaign based on his personal, political and philosophical allegiances to the likes of Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Rashid Khalidi, Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Despite these troubling relationships, Obama kept a reasonably low profile on controversial Mideast issues during the campaign, and he was aided by liberal Jews who shamelessly vouched for his mythical pro-Israel and philo-semitic bona fides.
Israpundit 04/04/2010
Karzai calls Clinton to ‘clarify’
Afghan President Karzai called Secretary Clinton today to clarify his statements from yesterday, and they had a constructive conversation,” Assistant Secretary Philip J. Crowley said in a statement. “President Karzai reaffirmed his commitment to the partnership between our two countries and expressed his appreciation for the contributions and sacrifices of the international community. They pledged to continue working together in a spirit of partnership.”
It was a “constructive conversation in a cordial environment,” said Karzai spokesman Waheed Omer. “President Karzai said the Afghan people and the Afghan government were grateful for the support and sacrifice of the international community for peace in Afghanistan and in the world.
Politico 04/03/2010
Hillary Clinton Spends $5.4 Million on Crystal Stemware for State Department
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department is spending $5.4 million to buy fine crystal stemware for American embassies — but it won’t give the US economy much of a boost.
The contract was given to a tiny Washington, DC, interior designer, which in turn subcontracted the crystal work to a Swedish firm — snubbing such US companies as the famous manufacturer in Clinton’s own back yard, Steuben Crystal of upstate Corning.
The firm didn’t even get a chance to bid on the contract, which will outfit embassies and ambassadors’ residences with fancy crystal for ritzy functions.
The Dana Show 03/17/2010
