There her schedule was, as is typical, packed with bilaterals, speeches, and interviews. She met with young Roma professionals in Bulgaria. The topic at the Munich Security Conference was the upheaval in Syria.
Back in D.C. on the sixth she spoke out against female genital mutilation and met with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Of awe have seen with whom ll the Israeli officials she has met with over her years as SOS, Lieberman is the one with whom we have seen her the least. Irony number one: He resigned recently in the wake of an indictment on fraud charges. I always sensed negative electricity between them, and perhaps fraud was the reason.
She welcomed a new Haitian foreign minister, Italian FM Terzi di Sant Agata, Turkish FM Davutoglu and a Burmese civil delegation. On Valentine's Day she attended a dinner in honor of Chinese VP Xi Jinping. She spoke at a clean air initiative and had a town hall at USAID about her QDDR - a significant aspect of her legacy at DOS.
Next she was off to Los Cabos, Mexico for a G-20 meeting. Immediately after that she left on a trip first to the U.K. and then north Africa that was almost a mirror of the trip she had to cancel almost two weeks ago when she fell ill with a mean stomach virus and consequently fainted suffering a concussion. Irony number two. The topic, of course, was Syria as it was when Deputy Secretary Burns traveled in her place last week.
Final ironies of last February: Upon her return to D.C., Mme. Secretary spent the remainder of the month before the Senate and House Appropriations Committees and the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs Committees. The topic? Big Irony number three: Defending her budget request for diplomatic security - the very issue for which Republicans on those committees who did not grant her requested budget now want to fault her. Originally scheduled to testify on the Hill yesterday, she was replaced by her deputies Burns and Nides.
Fourth and final irony: Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry, her staunch supporter will be nominated Hillary Clinton's successor as secretary of state within the hour.
Here is the archive for February 2012.
