This malarkey about Sen. Clinton having all this foreign policy experience strikes me as a serial fabrication on the level of Stephen Glass or Jayson Blair.
There is no doubt that Hillary Clinton played an important domestic policy role when she was First Lady. It is well known, for example, that she led the failed effort to pass universal health insurance. There is no reason to believe, however, that she was a key player in foreign policy at any time during the Clinton Administration. She did not sit in on National Security Council meetings. She did not have a security clearance. She did not attend meetings in the Situation Room. She did not manage any part of the national security bureaucracy, nor did she have her own national security staff. She did not do any heavy-lifting with foreign governments, whether they were friendly or not. She never managed a foreign policy crisis, and there is no evidence to suggest that she participated in the decision-making that occurred in connection with any such crisis. As far as the record shows, Senator Clinton never answered the phone either to make a decision on any pressing national security issue – not at 3 AM or at any other time of day.
To: Interested Parties
From: Greg Craig, former director, Policy Planning Office, U.S. State Department
RE: Senator Clinton’s claim to be experienced in foreign policy: Just words?
DA: March 11, 2008
When your entire campaign is based upon a claim of experience, it is important that you have evidence to support that claim. Hillary Clinton’s argument that she has passed “the Commander- in-Chief test” is simply not supported by her record.
There is no doubt that Hillary Clinton played an important domestic policy role when she was First Lady. It is well known, for example, that she led the failed effort to pass universal health insurance. There is no reason to believe, however, that she was a key player in foreign policy at any time during the Clinton Administration. She did not sit in on National Security Council meetings. She did not have a security clearance. She did not attend meetings in the Situation Room. She did not manage any part of the national security bureaucracy, nor did she have her own national security staff. She did not do any heavy-lifting with foreign governments, whether they were friendly or not. She never managed a foreign policy crisis, and there is no evidence to suggest that she participated in the decision-making that occurred in connection with any such crisis. As far as the record shows, Senator Clinton never answered the phone either to make a decision on any pressing national security issue – not at 3 AM or at any other time of day.
When asked to describe her experience, Senator Clinton has cited a handful of international incidents where she says she played a central role. But any fair-minded and objective judge of these claims – i.e., by someone not affiliated with the Clinton campaign – would conclude that Senator Clinton’s claims of foreign policy experience are exaggerated.
Northern Ireland:
Senator Clinton has said, “I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland.” It is a gross overstatement of the facts for her to claim even partial credit for bringing peace to Northern Ireland. She did travel to Northern Ireland, it is true. First Ladies often travel to places that are a focus of U.S. foreign policy. But at no time did she play any role in the critical negotiations that ultimately produced the peace. As the Associated Press recently reported, “[S]he was not directly involved in negotiating the Good Friday peace accord.” With regard to her main claim that she helped bring women together, she did participate in a meeting with women, but, according to those who know best, she did not play a pivotal role. The person in charge of the negotiations, former Senator George Mitchell, said that “[The First Lady] was one of many people who participated in encouraging women to get involved, not the only one.”
News of Senator Clinton’s claims has raised eyebrows across the ocean. Her reference to an important meeting at the Belfast town hall was debunked. Her only appearance at the Belfast City Hall was to see Christmas lights turned on. She also attended a 50-minute meeting which, according to the Belfast Daily Telegraph’s report at the time, “[was] a little bit stilted, a little prepared at times.” Brian Feeney, an Irish author and former politician, sums it up: “The road to peace was carefully documented, and she wasn’t on it.”
Bosnia:
Senator Clinton has pointed to a March 1996 trip to Bosnia as proof that her foreign travel involved a life-risking mission into a war zone. She has described dodging sniper fire. While she did travel to Bosnia in March 1996, the visit was not a high-stakes mission to a war zone. On March 26, 1996, the New York Times reported that “Hillary Rodham Clinton charmed American troops at a U.S.O. show here, but it didn’t hurt that the singer Sheryl Crow and the comedian Sinbad were also on the stage.”
Kosovo:
Senator Clinton has said, “I negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo.” It is true that, as First Lady, she traveled to Macedonia and visited a Kosovar refugee camp. It is also true that she met with government officials while she was there. First Ladies frequently meet with government officials. Her claim to have “negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo,” however, is not true. Her trip to Macedonia took place on May 14, 1999. The borders were opened the day before, on May 13, 1999.
The negotiations that led to the opening of the borders were accomplished by the people who ordinarily conduct negotiations with foreign governments – U.S. diplomats. President Clinton’s top envoy to the Balkans, former Ambassador Robert Gelbard, said, “I cannot recall any involvement by Senator Clinton in this issue.” Ivo Daalder worked on the Clinton Administration’s National Security Council and wrote a definitive history of the Kosovo conflict. He recalls that “she had absolutely no role in the dirty work of negotiations.”
Rwanda:
Last year, former President Clinton asserted that his wife pressed him to intervene with U.S. troops to stop the Rwandan genocide. When asked about this assertion, Hillary Clinton said it was true. There is no evidence, however, to suggest that this ever happened. Even those individuals who were advocating a much more robust U.S. effort to stop the genocide did not argue for the use of U.S. troops. No one recalls hearing that Hillary Clinton had any interest in this course of action. Based on a fair and thorough review of National Security Council deliberations during those tragic months, there is no evidence to suggest that U.S. military intervention was ever discussed. Prudence Bushnell, the Assistant Secretary of State with responsibility for Africa, has recalled that there was no consideration of U.S. military intervention.
At no time prior to her campaign for the presidency did Senator Clinton ever make the claim that she supported intervening militarily to stop the Rwandan genocide. It is noteworthy that she failed to mention this anecdote – urging President Clinton to intervene militarily in Rwanda – in her memoirs. President Clinton makes no mention of such a conversation with his wife in his memoirs. And Madeline Albright, who was Ambassador to the United Nations at the time, makes no mention of any such event in her memoirs.
Hillary Clinton did visit Rwanda in March 1998 and, during that visit, her husband apologized for America’s failure to do more to prevent the genocide.
China
Senator Clinton also points to a speech that she delivered in Beijing in 1995 as proof of her ability to answer a 3 AM crisis phone call. It is strange that Senator Clinton would base her own foreign policy experience on a speech that she gave over a decade ago, since she so frequently belittles Barack Obama’s speeches opposing the Iraq War six years ago. Let there be no doubt: she gave a good speech in Beijing, and she stood up for women’s rights. But Senator Obama’s opposition to the War in Iraq in 2002 is relevant to the question of whether he, as Commander-in-Chief, will make wise judgments about the use of military force. Senator Clinton’s speech in Beijing is not.
Senator Obama’s speech opposing the war in Iraq shows independence and courage as well as good judgment. In the speech that Senator Clinton says does not qualify him to be Commander in Chief, Obama criticized what he called “a rash war . . . a war based not on reason, but on passion, not on principle, but on politics.” In that speech, he said prophetically: “[E]ven a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.” He predicted that a U.S. invasion of Iraq would “fan the flames of the Middle East,” and “strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda.” He urged the United States first to “finish the fight with Bin Laden and al Qaeda.”
If the U.S. government had followed Barack Obama’s advice in 2002, we would have avoided one of the greatest foreign policy catastrophes in our nation’s history. Some of the most “experienced” men in national security affairs – Vice President Cheney and Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others – led this nation into that catastrophe. That lesson should teach us something about the value of judgment over experience. Longevity in Washington, D.C. does not guarantee either wisdom of judgment.
Conclusion:
The Clinton campaign’s argument is nothing more than mere assertion, dramatized in a scary television commercial with a telephone ringing in the middle of the night. There is no support for or substance in the claim that Senator Clinton has passed “the Commander-in-Chief test.” That claim – as the TV ad – consists of nothing more than making the assertion, repeating it frequently to the voters and hoping that they will believe it.
On the most critical foreign policy judgment of our generation – the War in Iraq – Senator Clinton voted in support of a resolution entitled “The Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of U.S. Military Force Against Iraq.” As she cast that vote, she said: “This is probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make — any vote that may lead to war should be hard — but I cast it with conviction.” In this campaign, Senator Clinton has argued – remarkably – that she wasn’t actually voting for war, she was voting for diplomacy. That claim is no more credible than her other claims of foreign policy experience. The real tragedy is that we are still living with the terrible consequences of her misjudgment. The Bush Administration continues to cite that resolution as its authorization – like a blank check – to fight on with no end in sight.
Barack Obama has a very simple case. On the most important commander in chief test of our generation, he got it right, and Senator Clinton got it wrong. In truth, Senator Obama has much more foreign policy experience than either Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan had when they were elected. Senator Obama has worked to confront 21st century challenges like proliferation and genocide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He possesses the personal attributes of a great leader – an even temperament, an open-minded approach to even the most challenging problems, a willingness to listen to all views, clarity of vision, the ability to inspire, conviction and courage.
And Barack Obama does not use false charges and exaggerated claims to play politics with national security.
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Hillary Clinton Watched Something. Make Her President.
Good counter-punch. Between this and the Ferraro resignation call, I feel confident that Obama’s campaign will not let the Kitchen Sink strategy keep them on the ropes.
I liked this email very much. It was respectful of the role that Hillary played in domestic affairs and was very fact-based in its review of foreign affairs. It was I hope, the future of politics.
I would say something in response to this, but as a Clinton supporter I am obviously not a fair-minded and objective judge of the Obama campaign’s press releases.
Aaah, who cares. This is the Internets.
Once again we see the tired old argument “but she wasn’t on the National Security Council, she didn’t attend the meetings, she didn’t have a security clearance, so what possible knowledge or impact could she have had on policy decisions?” As I’ve said before, she was married to the man who DID have those responsibilities. Knowing Bill Clinton and knowing Hillary Clinton, knowing how marriages work, and knowing how this “power couple” had campaigned as “two for the price of one,” how can anyone with a straight face contend that Hillary had NO knowledge of these policy debates, NO input with the President, and NO impact on the decisions he ultimately made? It’s ludicrous on its face.
Spin is always out there, twisting facts to support your preferred viewpoint. Look at the Northern Ireland claim. The Obama release waxes indignant about Hillary’s “gross overstatement of the facts;” yet how is it an overstatement to claim “I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland” when right there in the press release “[t]he person in charge of the negotiations, former Senator George Mitchell, said that “[The First Lady] was one of many people who participated in encouraging women to get involved.” Hillary never said she was the ONLY person who participated; that is an invention of the Obama staffer. But it slides under the radar, because the Clinton Rules dictate that anything Hillary says or does is for the aggrandizement of Hillary Clinton alone. Therefore we simply assume that the Obama staffer was accurate in his characterization of Hillary’s public statements. He was not, by the content of his own press release.
Isn’t this line of argument exactly the same one used against Al Gore, when it was alleged that “he claimed to have invented the Internet?” Is that the kind of argument that makes up a “good counter-punch?”
On Bosnia: do a search for “hillary clinton bosnia dodged bullets;” the top result that comes up is from Michelle Malkin’s blog. Is that a source of memes Obama wants to be spreading? Read la Malkin’s post and compare it to the press release; practically identical in tone if not in content. And while it literally may be true that Hillary was on a USO tour, it also may be literally true (as reported by the quote Malkin posted) that the flight into the war zone was not exactly dull.
That’s the first two down; need I go on?
If you want to highlight the fact that Obama argued against the Iraq AUMF while Hillary voted for it, fine. That’s a legitimate point. But this kind of ham-fisted spinning, invention of non-facts, distortion of truth and forwarding of right-wing talking points is exactly the wrong way to go about demonstrating that you are a better candidate.
Being married to somebody who has a job, no matter how often that person may ask you for advice or you may offer input, does not qualify you to have that job. I’m sorry. It just doesn’t. Your logic lives on a very slippery slope, and you previously dismissed the idea of “Yoko could have been a Beatle” as facetious, but the comparison is apt. Arguably, Yoko was closer and more intimate with John than Hillary was with Bill, but good luck trying to convince anybody that she could just as easily have stepped in for John in a Beatles reunion effort.
She may be a very good advisor. But being married to the CiC doesn’t make you cross the “threshold” of being able to do the job.
And actually, I notice you stopped right before Kosovo. Please refute the matter of the border-opening date discrepancy.
Oh, and let me say this:
This press release about how Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy experience is all made-up, exaggerated and phony strikes me as the kind of underhanded spin-filled baloney we should have had more than enough of courtesy of Karl Rove and the MSM in 2000 and 2004.
Well, that’s all very well and good. Why not make those discussions public, then?
But during those two terms in the White House, Mrs. Clinton did not hold a security clearance. She did not attend National Security Council meetings. She was not given a copy of the president’s daily intelligence briefing. She did not assert herself on the crises in Somalia, Haiti and Rwanda.
And during one of President Bill Clinton’s major tests on terrorism, whether to bomb Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, Mrs. Clinton was barely speaking to her husband, let alone advising him, as the Lewinsky scandal sizzled.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/26/us/politics/26clinton.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Yeah, Hillary. Cut it out.
liberalrob, it is too long to address all of the issues you’ve raised so let me just stick to Northern Ireland.
Fact claim: “I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland.”
I hire people all the time and so I often put statements like this in the context of my hiring conventions. (She is after all asking me to hire her as my president.) If I read that statement on her resume, I would assume she were pretty deeply involved, and that explains the wording. She wants us to believe that, so it is a legitimate line of questioning to ask what she actually did.
When you look at the historical record and the corroborating evidence, it looks TERRIBLE for her on this score. Even George Mitchell, the diplomat’s diplomat could not do more than offer a tepid endorsement, and he is backing her campaign. On the other side, Greg Craig and David Trimble basically say she had no important role, and they would certainly know. If I was using Clinton metrics, I guess you could say that I helped bring peace to Northern Ireland because I bought U2’s “Under a Blood Red Sky” in 1985!
So getting back to hiring practices, I see resume padding all the time. They range from the mild exaggerations to mendacity. This is probably more of the former than the latter, but I generally try not to hire padded resumes because chances are they are not trustworthy employees. It would be wise for you to consider this as well.
The sad part for Hillary and her supporters is that she is very strong on domestic issues and can make a reasonable case that she would be a stronger and more knowledgeable domestic candidate than Obama. Furthermore, we are more in need of domestic issue engagement. Had she been handled by someone other than Penn and the idiot parade, she might have made a case, but now she is stuck defending her Irish tea sittings…
I usually hate to get into “my source is more reliable than your source” arguments (except when it’s sources like Malkin where I have no doubt of the outcome), but take a look at this Time article (which for all I know may be a primary source for the Obama press release):
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1720720,00.html
Just run down all the “anti-Clinton” arguments in that article, cross out all the pro-Clinton ones, and you practically have the press release. Hmm.
Here you go, SpiderJ:
I thought the argument about Yoko was that she pulled John Lennon away from the Beatles and ultimately destroyed the group, not that she could have stepped in for him or helped him in his songwriting for them. Again, I fail to see the relevance.
Yes, let’s party like it’s 1999! More press release goodness:
And we all know it never happened, because just like Al Gore, Hillary Clinton is a big fat liar who will say anything to get elected!
The Clinton Rules! Right here, right now!
liberalrob: “I thought the argument about Yoko was that she pulled John Lennon away from the Beatles and ultimately destroyed the group, not that she could have stepped in for him or helped him in his songwriting for them. Again, I fail to see the relevance.”
Exactly. Nobody reasonable would put forth the argument that, because she was married to Lennon, that Yoko could replace him.
Yet the argument has been put forth that, by being married to Bill, Hillary has somehow gained qualifications to do the same job.
Seems to me you’ve hit the relevance square on.
liberalrob: “And we all know it never happened, because just like Al Gore, Hillary Clinton is a big fat liar who will say anything to get elected!”
Well, if you read further in the article and actual responded to the points made, you’d see that:
So, can anyone prove it didn’t happen? No, negatives can’t be proven. But doesn’t it seem at all odd that there would be no mention of such a significant act anywhere until now?
Color me unreasonable then. I don’t see it.
Was it ever important until now? Is there anything you’ve ever done that seemed routine or that you forgot you had done, until at some later point something happened to spark your memory? No, it doesn’t seem odd. It only seems odd because it’s so relevant today.
liberalrob, you can’t see the forest for the trees. It is entirely possible that Hillary tried to push Bill to act militarily in Rwanda, but she had neither the information nor the power to make that decision herself and was not persuasive enough to get anybody to act on her behalf. How does that prove her foreign policy chops? How does that prove she’s not exaggerating her foreign policy resume?
liberalrob: “No, it doesn’t seem odd. It only seems odd because it’s so relevant today.”
Fair point. And I’m not saying it didn’t happen. I admit that can’t be proven. I’m just noting that it is odd that this (and several other) qualifications don’t ever seem to have been mentioned before.
liberalrob: “Color me unreasonable then. I don’t see it.
Not sure how to state it plainer than I did so consider yourself, uh, colored?