Transcript of Hillary’s remarks to State Department Employees.
Hillary Clinton arrived for her first day of work as the 67th U.S. Secretary of State on January 22, 2009. . The following is a transcript of her remarks to employees following her arrival.
(begin transcript)
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
January 22, 2009
REMARKS
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
Welcome Remarks to Employees
January 22, 2009
Washington, D.C.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you. Thank you all so much. Well, I am absolutely honored and thrilled beyond words to be here with you as our nation’s 67th Secretary of State. And I believe, with all of my heart, that this is a new era for America. (Applause.)
President Obama set the tone with his inaugural address. And the work of the Obama-Biden Administration is committed to advancing America’s national security, furthering America’s interests, and respecting and exemplifying America’s values around the world. (Applause.)
There are three legs to the stool of American foreign policy: defense, diplomacy, and development. And we are responsible for two of the three legs. And we will make clear, as we go forward, that diplomacy and development are essential tools in achieving the long-term objectives of the United States. And I will do all that I can, working with you, to make it abundantly clear that robust diplomacy and effective development are the best long-term tools for securing America’s future. (Applause.)
In my testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee, I spoke a lot about smart power. Well, at the heart of smart power are smart people, and you are those people. And you are the ones that we will count on and turn to for the advice and counsel, the expertise and experience to make good on the promises of this new Administration.
I want to thank Steve for his comments that really summarized the full range of experience and expertise of both the Foreign Service and the Civil Service, and also to send my appreciation to all of the nationals around the world who work in our embassies and work with government officials.
This is going to be a challenging time and it will require 21st century tools and solutions to meet our problems and seize our opportunities. I’m going to be asking a lot of you. I want you to think outside the proverbial box. I want you to give me the best advice you can. I want you to understand there is nothing that I welcome more than a good debate and the kind of dialogue – (applause) – that will make us better. (Applause.)
We cannot be our best if we don’t demand that from ourselves and each other. I will give you my very best efforts. I will do all that I can, working with our President, to make sure that we deliver on the promises that are at the very core of what this new Administration and this new era represent. So we need to collaborate, and we need to have a sense of openness and candor in this building. And I invite that.
Now, not everybody’s ideas – (applause) – will make it into policy, but we will be better because we have heard from you.
I also want to address a word to the USAID family. I will be there tomorrow to greet them and thank them for the work they’ve done on behalf of development through some very difficult years, because they will be our partners. (Applause.)
Now, as Steve candidly said, so far, we’re thrilled. (Laughter.) This is not going to be easy. (Laughter.) I don’t want anybody to leave this extraordinarily warm reception thinking, oh, good – (laughter) – you know, this is going to be great. It’s going to be hard. But if it weren’t hard, somebody else could do it, besides the professionals of the Foreign Service and the Civil Service and our Diplomatic and Development Corps. (Applause.)
Now, as you may have heard percolating through the building, you know, when I was first nominated, I realized that there was this living, organic creature known as the building. (Laughter.) And as you probably already know, we are expecting the President and the Vice President to be here in the State Department this afternoon. (Applause.)
Among the many conversations that I’ve had with the President and with the Vice President, over years, but certainly much more astutely and in a concentrated way in the last weeks, we want to send a clear and unequivocal message: This is a team, and you are the members of that team. There isn’t anything that I can get done from the seventh floor or the President can get done from the Oval Office, unless we make clear we are all on the American team. We are not any longer going to tolerate the kind of divisiveness that has paralyzed and undermined our ability to get things done for America.
So the President will be here – (applause) – on his second day in office to let all of you know, and all who are serving on our behalf around the world, how seriously committed he is to working with us. So this is going to be a great adventure. We’ll have some ups and some downs. We’ll face some obstacles along the way. But be of good cheer – (laughter) – and be of strong heart, and do not grow weary, as we attempt to do good on behalf of our country and the world.
I think this is a time of such potential and possibility. I don’t get up in the morning just thinking about the threats and the dangers, as real as they are. I also think about what we can do and who we are and what we represent. So I take this office with a real sense of joy and responsibility, commitment and collaboration. And now, ladies and gentlemen, let’s get to work. (Applause.)
Thank you and God bless you.
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Hillary launches U.S.-Afghanistan-Pakistan trilateral consultations
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton convened a three-way meeting with the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan Wednesday, saying they face a common threat, task and challenge posed by Islamic extremism. Clinton stressed U.S. regret over the death of Afghan civilians in a U.S. air attack Monday against Taliban forces.
The trilateral meeting, the second of its kind this year, comes at a critical juncture with both the Pakistani and Afghan governments facing major battlefield challenges from militant forces.
Clinton, convening joint talks that are to continue later at the White House with President Obama, said the administration has common cause with the two South Asian governments, who she said are struggling
Groceries or Joe Biden? Easy choice!
Courtesy of New Hampshire’s Belknap County Democrats, presidential candidate Joe Biden paid a visit to Laconia’s Weirs Beach yesterday afternoon.
I could have gone — it was just a 10 minute drive up the road. I thought I might ask a question about health care reform but I knew that everyone there, including Biden, had only one thing are their minds — Iraq, Iraq, and Iraq. (Technically, I guess that’s three things.)
Then, I thought, hell, I could say hello to Lynn Chong and her husband, Rob. I know they would love to meet me. Lynn is chair of the Belknap County Democratic Committee. She is euphemistically known as a “progressive Democrat.” I know she is a nice woman because she is not a Republican and is a friend of a friend of a friend.
Lynn and I see the Iraq war and the solution Democrats should offer from quite different perspectives. Those of us who think Hillary Clinton might be a worthy nominee were a little annoyed that Lynn publicly dismissed the Senator (because of Iraq, of course) even before Hillary had visited New Hampshire as a candidate. But we’re all grown ups here — we’ll let bygones be bygones, right?
But the most important factor that weighed on my decision to go — or not to go — was Joe Biden himself.
Biden has been around Washington D.C. longer than the Jefferson Memorial. There’s a lot of Biden history there. The problem is that most of it is remarkably forgettable. I’ve seen him dozens of times on Meet the Press and other political shows and newscasts. I can’t remember a single important or interesting thing that he has said.
All I remember about Biden is that Mike Dukakis fatally kicked him in the groin during the 1988 Democratic presidential campaign for plagiarizing parts of a speech. The media then woke up and found numerous other cases of Biden “lifting” someone else’s work. According to the Washington Post, these included “a serious plagiarism incident involving Biden during his law school years; the senator’s boastful exaggerations of his academic record at a New Hampshire campaign event; and the discovery of other quotations in Biden’s speeches pilfered from past Democratic politicians.”
(If it is any consolation to the half-dozen Biden supporters out there, pick anyone out of the US Senate and you have a 88% chance of getting someone with a dubious past and a historically-challenged political track record.)
Although I knew that Senator Biden was coming to town, I knew that a nasty spring snowstorm was coming to town, too. (It is here as I write, creating panic among the chickadees and juncos and making my plow guy the richest man in the neighborhood.) Instinctively, I looked into my refrigerator and saw that it was nearly empty. I had visions of being stranded on this snowy hill without food until Memorial Day. I had a choice to make: groceries or Biden. Get food or get bored.
So I got the groceries.
This morning I checked the Laconia Citizen to see what history-making pronouncements Joe Biden made at his Weirs Beach campaign event. Totally surprising no one, he said, “This war must end.”
