SOS Hillary Clinton: a Natural on the Global Stage

Photo credits: Courtesy of the NY Times

Barack Obama has described himself as a Rorschach test in whom people see what they want to see. And in today’s NY Times, Jodi Kantor offers a somewhat similar metaphor for Hillary Clinton, Obama’s one-time opponent expected soon to become secretary of state in his administration.

Kantor writes:

“Hillary Rodham Clinton, a first lady turned senator turned almost-president, is now transforming herself again, this time into the nation’s top diplomat. But she is also back to a role she cannot seem to shake: a canvas for women’s highest hopes and deepest fears about the workplace."

Kantor quotes several Clinton friends and associates, including feminist icon Gloria Steinem and long-time supporter and friend Susie Tompkins Buell to illustrate her point. Some of those cited expect great things of Hillary as SOS, and others regret her decision to take a position in which – as the saying goes - she will serve at the president’s pleasure.

‘“On the positive side, Tomkins Buell said: ‘And in terms of sheer impact, the imprint she leaves on the world and on history, the State Department would offer a more global platform than the Senate. ‘I always come back to what Hillary wants, which is to do the most important work she can do, the biggest work.’"

Kantor reports that Marie C. Wilson, president of the White House Project, a women’s leadership organization, said she would like to have seen Mrs. Clinton as Senate majority leader, a situation she now knows will never happen.

And Kantor can’t resist pointing out:

“The fledgling Obama administration is a mostly male club, with figures like Rahm Emanuel, Eric H. Holder Jr. and Timothy F. Geithner filling or expected to fill top positions, and in recent days, some speculated that Mrs. Clinton was selected, at least in some small part, because she was a woman.”

Considering the rampant sexism in the 2008 race, Ms. Kantor, we could also say that Barack Obama was elected to the presidency, at least in some small part, because he was a man. In the Democratic primary, Obama most certainly did benefit from the trashing of Hillary Clinton and in the general election, he benefited from similar treatment of Sarah Palin.

Christine C. Quinn, the first female speaker of the New York City Council and a longtime political friend of Ms. Clinton summed up well all of the conjecture about Clinton’s appointment to the secretary of state position:

'“If she was a guy going to work for a guy, nobody would ask if it was a diminution of her voice.”

'“Our country has been shunned by our allies, been rejected off of the world stage,' she continued. 'The president, who has a job that you have the deepest respect for, says ‘You are our gal, put our country back on the world stage.’ Unless you are blind with ambition, how can you walk away from it? It’s a calling too great for somebody who has a deep sense of patriotism and duty.”

As outraged as I’ve been since the Democratic primary, I’m becoming convinced that with Hillary Clinton’s record on human rights and other issues of international concern, she was destined all along for a global stage; the oval office would have been too confining for her.

You go, Hillary!