Hillary Clinton: Classic or Dud?

international relations, a thing that exists, much to the chagrin of progressives who are vehemently against it in all forms

― El Tomboto, Friday, September 15, 2017 4:35 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What fucking website is this?

clinton's tenure as secretary of state probably wasn't much worse than many of her predecessors', certainly not bush's people. she still has blood on her hands and will burn in hell if such a place exists, along with the rest of the members of that club

there is a wealth of fantastic reporting in the mainstream press about clinton's sins, errors, and misjudgments as secretary. to call all of that bullshit based on the (tbf, true) fact that she has to put up with a lot of sexism is not a legitimate response

Alfred, that is an acceptable answer especially since you live in florida

the LGM-118 peacekeeper is no longer in stock however

I do think there's an interesting question in there - how morally culpable is an individual for participating in an inherently unjust system - but I think the answer is so tangled that it leaves any interpretation of personal blame looking fairly facile.

if we want to restrict it to specific actions, what would Simon have preferred Hillary do re: that particular arms sale? Block it? It's hard to conceive of how she would have been able to - Congress would have immediately forced the sale, or Obama might have overruled her and told her "do it or you're fired, we can't have an international incident/disruption in relations over this". There could have been significant economic and political blowback that would cause all sorts of problems for the US. And in the end even if the sale was blocked as noted the Saudis would have just gone ahead and murdered as many Yemenis as they could anyway - either with what they already have or could have bought from others. So... where is Clinton's moral agency in this situation?

xp

Cordell Hull was sidelined and mocked

well tbf this is largely a contest of "least bad" not most effective

and was an anti-Semite.

is the a reference to the LaGuardia thing? or is there more there? playing middleman between LaGuardia and Hitler seems like a thankless task, dunno how much I would ascribe his personal views to that. (full disclosure I haven't read a bio of Hull or anything)

"middleman" isn't right there - referee maybe?

The moral option would have been not taking the job in the first place and using your massive influence and privilege to speak out against US foreign policy orthodoxy.

i do agree with shakey tho that this particular example is pretty low on the list of HRC's sins. doesn't mean she doesn't bear responsibility or that she shouldnt have to answer for it

The moral option would have been not taking the job in the first place and using your massive influence and privilege to speak out against US foreign policy orthodoxy.

but she obviously saw Sec of State as a stepping stone to having even MORE massive influence and privelege to actually control US foreign policy - ie, being President.

which is just the kind of inconceivable moral calculus the power elite have to traffick in (ie "well if I let these 5,000 people die I can maybe prevent the deaths of 25,000" - I mean who can second-guess or even make these decisions, it's fucking nuts)

Hey, remember back in 2011 when the international community wasted it's time on a peaceful transfer of power in Yemen and new elections, even though everyone foresaw that the Houthi insurgency would turn into a civil war four years later?

The moral option would have been not taking the job in the first place and using your massive influence and privilege to speak out against US foreign policy orthodoxy.

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), 15. september 2017 22:47 (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I know there is another thread dedicated to this, but this is such a sad parody of a leftist foreign policy position.

going after Hillary Clinton about her Sec State tenure is pretty much 100% unadulterated sexism and/or personality-based bullshit. Even a cursory look at the other people who've held that position and how they've been assessed / "held accountable" makes that clear.

It is fairly disingenuous for anyone with a passing familiarity with leftist thought to think that Clinton is the only SoS they utterly despise. Lefties are still wishing eternal pain and misery on Madeleine Albright for her stance on Iraq sanctions and openly pining for Kissinger to get Mussolini'd.

I think the "wealth of fantastic reporting" is partly because of The Clinton Rules, which are driven by her personality and the media's reaction to it. Most Sec States are treated, appropriately, as subordinate to the POTUS they work for, but since Obama was so much more popular and made us feel gooder about ourselves, all kinds of foreign policy errors were laid at Hillary's feet that would not have been. The counterfactual is exemplified by Kerry, who was covered as carrying out Obama's FP, not as some sinister orchestrator of neoliberal schemes.

Any coverage or argument that presents Hillary as especially conniving, scheming, or secretly approving of evil deeds, comes from a particular place, and I don't think it's wrong or lazy to question how people find themselves there.

Fred do you really think there's a "moral" way to act as SoS without dismantling the MIC

The counterfactual is exemplified by Kerry, who was covered as carrying out Obama's FP,

Obama's face palms?

btw I know I've already stated this a few times in other threads but in case I didn't say it loud enough Bernie also sucks on foreign policy

many xp. yes Milo I know Teh Left hates all Sec States. shakey otm.

Most Sec States are treated, appropriately, as subordinate to the POTUS they work for, but since Obama was so much more popular and made us feel gooder about ourselves, all kinds of foreign policy errors were laid at Hillary's feet that would not have been.

How many Secretaries of State have run for President immediately following the President they served?

If you know the left hates all Sec States how can you call it "sexism and/or personality-based bullshit"?

but she obviously saw Sec of State as a stepping stone to having even MORE massive influence and privelege to actually control US foreign policy - ie, being President.

only someone who doesn't have any aspirations to transform that order (eg someone who has no intent to use that eventual privilege to change much of anything) would be suited to carry out the tasks associated with that particular stepping stone

tell me who your favorite secretary of state was and why

Hafta to go with Henry, since as Python sang he had nicer legs than Hitler and bigger tits than Cher.

We deserve to be nuked a million times over.

hey actually that Python line also applies to [redacted]

I think the "wealth of fantastic reporting" is partly because of The Clinton Rules, which are driven by her personality and the media's reaction to it. Most Sec States are treated, appropriately, as subordinate to the POTUS they work for, but since Obama was so much more popular and made us feel gooder about ourselves, all kinds of foreign policy errors were laid at Hillary's feet that would not have been. The counterfactual is exemplified by Kerry, who was covered as carrying out Obama's FP, not as some sinister orchestrator of neoliberal schemes.

Any coverage or argument that presents Hillary as especially conniving, scheming, or secretly approving of evil deeds, comes from a particular place, and I don't think it's wrong or lazy to question how people find themselves there.

― El Tomboto, Friday, September 15, 2017 4:56 PM (nineteen seconds ago)

i mean there is just plenty of evidence from tons of legitimate reporting that clinton had always been the hawk in obama's ear. and (i know you know this, but) viewing SOSs as "subordinates" to the president is, while technically true, overly simplistic. the president can't devote 24hrs a day to state department stuff. the secretary is in charge of engineering much of the policy

this is just one example: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/hillary-clinton-libya.html

i understand the clinton fatigue, and i understand being sensitive to the very real gender dynamics. but the record of a secretary of state who is running for president matters. as someone just said upthread, the reason she took the job was to prepare for being president! to reflexively dismiss any criticism of her job as SOS on the grounds that it is tainted by widespread sexism suggests that you're not interested in having a serious discussion. and i know you are! leave that shit to fredrik

only someone who doesn't have any aspirations to transform that order (eg someone who has no intent to use that eventual privilege to change much of anything) would be suited to carry out the tasks associated with that particular stepping stone

that's an odd conclusion.

loads of counter-examples throughout US politics of people (apparently abruptly) changing their stripes/political goals as they ascend power. LBJ springs to mind.

xp

Nixon going to China etc.

btw fwiw I hope everybody remembers that I always had serious reservations about Hillary's foreign policy and thought she was too much of a hawk, her votes for the Iraq War were unforgivable etc. But I think it's weird to hold things like a Saudi arms sale during her SoS tenure against her, that's pretty small potatoes compared to some of her broader, more impactful positions (like Senate votes)

How many Secretaries of State have run for President immediately following the President they served?

― louise ck (milo z), Friday, September 15, 2017

In the old days all of them!

Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, JQ Adams, etc

SoS was basically "assistant president" until the 20th century

Fred do you really think there's a "moral" way to act as SoS without dismantling the MIC

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), 15. september 2017 22:56 (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes. Just as I think there's a moral way to act as Secretary of Health without instituting Single Payer. It's a fairly simple question, since it's not actually possible for a Secretary of State to singlehandedly dismantle the Military Industrial Complex. But meanwhile Foreign Policy keeps throwing up difficult problems that needs to be handled no matter what. 2011 post Arab Spring is actually a good example, as someone would have to figure out how to handle Saudi reactions to their neighbors inching towards democracy. And if we're going to shit on Clinton, why not shit on her for Bahrain, the country where the US actually allowed the autocrat to crack down on the protestors? Shitting on her for Saudi war crimes that happened while Kerry was SoS is... Well, let's call it weird. And sexism is a fairly good guess as to why someone would do that, though I guess the real explanation just has to do with another brainless Intercept dispatch or something.

I don't think it's possible to act morally without knowledge. If you don't know the situation, you can't take the moral choice. And following that, I don't think it's possible to have sound moral judgement on something you know fuck all about.

OK kev I'll knock it off. That her track record deserves some additional scrutiny because she was running is true. That the same kind and degree of scrutiny would have been received by another former Sec State is highly debatable.

clinton was a worse than average secretary of state w/ no major accomplishments that i can think of. it's telling that the obama administration foreign policy initiative she seems to have been most involved in, the libya intervention, is also the thing obama cites as the worst mistake of his presidency

And we've had a string of worse than average secretaries of state going back to, who, James Baker?

idk "average" is p bad to begin with

kerry's tenure as SoS seemed pretty solid

Obama blamed the French and English for Libya, though.

But I mean, Clinton voted for the war in Iraq and she didn't do anything like the deals with Cuba or Iran. She was definitely not in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize or anything. Competent, I guess. Plenty of stuff to discuss. Foreign Policy is really really difficult, and putting the bar at whether or not she dismantled the Military Industrial Complex is stupid.

but she obviously saw Sec of State as a stepping stone to having even MORE massive influence and privelege to actually control US foreign policy - ie, being President.

Was there any indication that she would have taken a different approach to foreign policy as President?

no!

kerry's tenure as SoS seemed pretty solid

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, September 15, 2017

Don't all reports suggest foreign policy came from the White House?

The foreign policy is coming from... inside the White House!

yo anyone have a pdf of the book

Well, she is - what Trump did was to call her out as part of "the establishment" while he, Donald Trump, was on your side against "them".

This worked as Clinton was imcompetent.

― xyzzzz__, Friday, September 15, 2017 7:23 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hilary might be competent, but was there any kind of vision? She seemed to offer few things to vote for.

― xyzzzz__, Friday, September 15, 2017 8:31 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

68 minutes

lol

Talking about her campign vs a 'might be', after a discussion of her years of running things - and even then..

You are clearly mad at me, with good cause - its gonna be ok Stevie.

Sadly a couple of people are now tweeting this whole damn thing...then again, this level of contempt is classic, and pretty much what my last comment was getting at. Just vote for me because of some citizen's duty/I'm not the other guy, not because I'm putting anything to vote for on the table.

this is why "liberals" love and need Trumps

Hillary's vision for America

During her 2016 campaign for president, Hillary and her team laid out a comprehensive progressive vision for America’s future.

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/

who could be bothered to look at policy though? maga

there should be tic boxes for the obvious bullshit tho