Based on Her Record, Not Qualified to be President
The DiploMad 2.0
The presumptive, or should I write the presumptuous Democratic party nominee for President, my old boss Hillary Clinton, delivered a foreign policy speech earlier today, June 2, in San Diego. Read it, of course, and decide what you think.
In my view, it is Hillary Clinton's best delivered speech so far (yes, a low bar) and would make a fine mainstream address well within the parameters of conventional American foreign policy of the past 50 years; well, it would except for one little, itsy-bitsy, easily-overlooked fact, to wit, the person who delivered it.
Hillary Clinton proudly states,
"I have sat in the Situation Room and advised the President on some of the toughest choices he faced. So I’m not new to this work. And I’m proud to run on my record . . ." And that, my friends, is the IED that blows apart anything else she might have to say. That is the hulking Harambe in the enclosure; the C-4 brick next to the gas tank; the lit match in a gas-filled room. Yes, she has a record! She's running on it! She might as well, I guess, since she can't run from it. In other words, it doesn't matter what else is in her speech, since she has a record we can examine.
And what a record it is!
Way, way back on March 19, 2012, I wrote a little piece, which stated,
The problem with Hillary Clinton's tenure [as SecState], however, is more fundamental than the lack of a doctrine. Secretary Clinton has no knowledge of or interest in foreign affairs. She is bored by the substance; has no appreciation for core US interests, or how to defend them; does not understand the correlation between military power and diplomacy; and fritters time ineffectually on marginal issues, e.g., women in Africa. She has a close entourage of mostly "high powered" women, e.g., Cheryl Mills, who come from her political campaigns, draw top government salaries, have no foreign affairs knowledge, and worry only about the Secretary's image. She has entrusted some key programs to this entourage, and they have made a hash. Cheryl Mills, for example, received overall control of the Haiti relief effort. That assistance effort has stagnated, amuck in a bureaucratic mire where nobody knows the policy, the priorities, or even how much money has been raised and spent and on what. No link exists between our generous contributions to Haiti and even minimal political gain for the US. Haiti's leaders cavort with Castro and Chavez, and regularly oppose us at the UN and the OAS. You're in trouble when even Haiti's leaders know they can defy you openly, and you will still pour in the cash. I have seen the Secretary in meetings with staff and foreign dignitaries. She reads her notes, spews out her talking points, and then gets that 1,000 yard stare. She is not at all interested in the goings on. She looks to her staff to extricate her, and tries to leave as quickly as possible. No decisiveness, no standing up for America, just a fatuous empty pantsuit blandness. That pretty well sums up her tenure in office, except, of course, for that pesky email thing ( here and here, for example.) Her record is one of almost unbroken calamity from when she was laundering bribes for her Governor husband in Arkansas, to her time as FLOTUS and her "control of the bimbo eruptions" mandate, her time as an inconsequential Senator, and as a horrific and corrupt Secretary of State.
Not that he needs it, but my advice to Trump would be to ignore what Clinton says and just keep referring to her record.
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