What they’re saying about Hillary Clinton – 3/21/10

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 –

Women In The World: Stories And Solutions’ Summit Draws Hillary Clinton, Queen Rania To New York

The conference opened Friday evening with remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who brought her daughter, Chelsea, along. The audience watched a clip of Clinton, as first lady, making her famous remarks at the 1995 U.N. women’s conference in Beijing, where she declared that “Women’s rights are human rights.”

Clinton quipped that those remarks came “15 years and many hairstyles ago.” Progress had been made, she joked, on both fronts. Turning serious, she called progress “undeniable, but insufficient.”

The Huffington Post 3/14/10

What Would Hillary Have Done?
Posted by Kevin Winge

Although many people discount Hillary Clinton’s eight years as First Lady, that time in Washington, combined with eight years as a U.S. senator, provided her with more than four times the D.C. beltway experience than that of the first-term senator from Illinois. Given those experiences and the relationships that Clinton cultivated, had she assumed the presidency with the same majorities in Congress and the Senate that Obama enjoyed, it is likely that much more legislation would have been passed in the first year of a Hillary Clinton administration. Included in that legislation might have been health care reform that wouldn’t have left the nation black and blue from all of the posturing, bickering and verbal assaults we have endured over the past year.

Star Tribune – Your Voices 3/18/10

Hillary Clinton’s Personal Vendetta Against The State of Israel

If you scour the internet about Hillary’s reaction and outlash against Israel last week, you will see countless accounts of what pundits and journalists deem a “surprising” and “heated” overreaction against the Israelis. Well, it’s all about the scorn of Hillary Clinton and it brings up a dangerous idea. What happens when an official of the United States can seriously damage the relationship between America and one of its biggest friends and allies all due to a personal grudge?

Holger Awakens 3/18/10

From Bitter Campaign to Strong Alliance

Sixteen months after Mr. Obama surprised nearly everyone by picking her as secretary of state, the two have again surprised nearly everyone by forging a credible partnership. Mrs. Clinton has proved to be an eager team player, a tireless defender of the administration, ever deferential to Mr. Obama and careful to ensure that her husband, the former president, does not upstage her boss. Mr. Obama has been solicitous of Mrs. Clinton, yielding to her at times in internal debates, even showing signs of adopting some of her more hawkish world views.

They now joke about their “frenemies” status and have made gestures toward each other’s families. When Mr. Obama learned that Chelsea Clinton had become engaged, he turned to Mrs. Clinton and asked, “Does she want a White House wedding?” a senior official recalled.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 3/19/10

Thinking about Vince Foster’s suicide today.

Deputy White House counsel Vince Foster was found dead in Fort Marcy Park off the George Washington Parkway in Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., on July 20, 1993. His death was ruled a suicide by multiple official investigations, but remains a subject of conspiracy theories.

In the process of re-reading the Hillary Clinton Quarterly story about the former First Lady and her involvement with Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, I came across the name of Vince Foster. Also, today, I read an excellent article published on the CNN web site, How to Save a Friend from the Brink. I hope to have more about the CNN article in the near future.

But as I read about things to do and not do to save a friend from committing suicide, I wondered about Hillary and how she must have felt — and might still feel — about the death of her former law partner and friend, Vince Foster. Often enough we read the reactions of friends of suicide victims and learn how they struggle with feelings of guilt for not doing enough and anger that the victim left them with such emptiness and mystery.

Soon after I learned of Foster’s suicide, I wrote in HCQ:

The tragic death of deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster is a reminder to all of us that public officials and just functionaries hired to get a job done. They are, first of all, people. They have the same fears, dreams, and needs as the rest of us. In the heat of political warfare, it is easy to forget the humanness of those who, for the most part, do their best to serve us.

Foster’s death is a warning, too, that what others do to us, we often do to ourselves. In the dichotomy of being and doing, we are not just what we do. There’s a danger — whether we’re running a business, raising a family, or working in the White House — of becoming so absorbed in doing things, we forget our own humanity. We forget to take care of ourselves, to nurture those emotional and spiritual needs that ultimately make us who we are.

One of the last things Foster wrote before he shot himself was this: “I was not meant for the job or the spotlight of public life in Washington. Here ruining people is considered sport.”

Not much has changed in almost 20 years, has it?

Hillary Clinton and Madison Guaranty: Conflict of interest or bum rap?

The Hillary Clinton Quarterly has published online another original story from Hillary Clinton’s days as First Lady.

In Hillary Clinton and Madison Guaranty: Conflict of Interest or Bum Rap? our resident legal advisor, Matt Hallisey, investigated accusations made by Hillary’s critics that her involvement with Susan and James McDougal’s Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan when she was at the Rose Law Firm was a violation of the legal code of ethics.