Saturday, November 19, 2011

Slideshow: Encore! Hillary Rocks ASEAN Bali!

Secretary Clinton and Indonesian Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo signed a five-year, US$600 million Millennium Challenge Corporation agreement on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit on Saturday. We see her with Sergei Lavrov as well, and, of course, with President Obama.

 Just a few personal comments. Not to be shallow or anything, but she has always rocked this oatmeal-colored linen pantsuit, so I am glad to see it return. Some of these pictures are reminiscent of of Eva Peron and remind me how lucky we are to have HRC. Poor Argentina. They lost Evita way too young. Finally, it is difficult to miss how this entire week at ASEAN has had the appearance of an introduction, or coming-out party for President Obama. He has, for years, depended entirely on HRC doing all the legwork. These are people she knows very well and communicates with regularly. He appears to be what he is ... the new kid on the block. It is as if she is bringing her little brother to his first day of school. What does that mean? Perhaps that she is in stage one of leaving DOS. No matter who replaces her, no one will do the job she has for him. IF he is reelected he will have to assume much of the diplomatic work that she has been doing. No one has her rock-star sparkle that simply wins over both officials and the civil sector the world over. That is my two cents, for what it is worth.