Hillary Clinton's legacy as Secretary of State: Is she transformational or overrated?
Is Hillary Clinton transformational or overrated? President Obama certainly seems to think the first option is the better choice.
"I think Hillary will go down as one of the finest secretary of states we've had," Obama said.
But not everyone agrees. A former administration official tells the Los Angeles Times that it's difficult to pin down Clinton's legacy as one of the best secretaries of state in American history.
"It's tough to see what's happened in world politics over the last four years that wouldn't have happened without her. So it's tough to see how she gets in the category of truly great, transformational secretaries."
OutFront tonight: Peter Brookes, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Bush administration and Anne-Marie Slaughter, former Director of Policy Planning at the State Department under Secretary Clinton.
On Twitter
Erin,
I caught your segment with Ann-Marie Slaughter's analysis of Mrs. Clinton's term as Secretary of State. I realize that you and Professor Slaughter are friendly, but this was asking Hillary Clinton's mentor about how her protégé performed using the mentor’s policies and prescriptions. The general public has never really understood that Ms. Slaughter was the architect of American foreign policy for the last four years, which has (by statistic), been at best misguided. I won't cover all the current Arab Spring consequences, Israeli relations and other "hot spots", or the nebulous Russian re-set. I won’t re-hash Benghazi: with the Secretary of State’s convenient missing in action and the like–but suffice it to say, a close inspection of the record doesn't look very outstanding. However, it was interesting to learn that Mrs. Clinton's primary accomplishment was that “America’s perception in the world has been fortified” or some such nonsense. Are we truly in an era of Sally Field diplomacy—where the primary criterion is likeability?
Anyway, love your show.
Stephen R. Ganns