Thursday, August 7, 2014

Hillary Clinton’s 'Hard Choices' Retrospective Part One A Fresh Start Chapter 1: A Fresh Start and Chapter 2: Foggy Bottom: Smart Power

In the first two chapters, Team of Rivals and Foggy Bottom, Hillary walks us through some of the 2008 primary season and her acceptance of the secretary of state post, with some of the staffing and policy decisions involved, and, finally, through her formal swearing in.

Those who were passionate supporters in 2008, especially PUMAs , are sure to suffer some sad and angry memories reading chapter one.  The nearest emotion I can confer to it is grief.  Many of us went through a process very close to if not exactly the stages of grief.  I am pretty expert in that field having lost both parents and almost all of my aunts and uncles over a period of about seven years from 1995 - 2002.  Grief was not a stranger to me, and that is how I felt about much of what Hillary recounts in chapter one.

Those who were part of the Women's Liberation Movement felt kicked in the stomach back to the Stone Age.  Where had all that misogyny come from?  Hillary does not directly confront it, but that might be because she, among all of us, was the one who was least surprised.

Chapter one is filled with memories that stick like an arrow in the gut.  She says she 'lost' the nomination, but we all knew she had done phenomenally well and had the convention respected  ... well,  convention, we might have seen a more traditional (and to us a fairer) nomination process.
Many here were among those who exhorted her to let us have a traditional roll call on the convention floor, but she went in another direction.

She explains her rationale in the book, just as she did at the time.  Anyone who knows anything about her would understand why she did what she did.  Many of us who love her still had a hard time accepting it, but then, those very reasons are part of why we love her.

In Part One she takes us through her suspension speech.

suspension_speech

Hillary Clinton Suspends Her Campaign – Tears Flow Copiously

June 8, 2008 by still4hill


She goes on to recount her shift from primary campaign mode to general election mode with the Unity, New Hampshire rally for Obama.

hill in blue

Hillary Clinton’s Unity New Hampshire Speech

Hillary Clinton Shines at the Convention

Many of us disagreed with her appearance on the convention floor to stop the roll call vote.  She acknowledges that and explains her reasons.  There is no mention of earlier votes at the hotels that morning, and perhaps she did not know about those when she walked onto the convention floor.  It is hard to say what she knew and to what degree she was simply following her own reasons.  I, for one, must simply take her at her word on this decision.



This is a chapter that, for diehard Hillary 2008 folks, is so hard to get through.  (If you click through to August 28 on the links above, you see how well I took that roll call vote and how some delegates chimed in.)

Hillary goes on in this section to describe her dilemma at being asked to accept the post of secretary of state.  She recounts her personal deliberations and decision-making process.  Having decided, she moves on to the preparations. They involved heavy briefings and  a good deal of policy formation much of which rested on foundations formed from Senate and White House experience.

She recalls her confirmation hearing in subdued tones except for the preparation and her great team that she praises, but it was a phenomenon.  It lasted nearly as long as three dissertation defenses might,  and she was on task. on topic, and on fire the whole time.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Hillary Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 01.13.09

r360483742

The Hillary Show: The reviews are in

MENDING WALL

(Frost read a poem at JFK's inauguration and my heart broke when the sun and wind were so strong that his papers blew and he had trouble seeing the pages.  I was a kid, and I loved him, so I cried. But that's beside the point.)

If there were walls, Hillary set them well.  She made her conditions for accepting the job clear, and President Obama complied.   When she arrived at Foggy Bottom she was greeted liked a rock star.
First she was sworn in privately, as she says.

Hillary Clinton Sworn-In Privately as 67th Secretary of State



Her arrival at C Street was jubilant!
Date: 01/22/2009 Description: 67th Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives for her first day at the Department of State greeted by an overflowing lobby of  Department employees in the diplomatic entrance. State Dept Photo

Hillary Rodham Clinton: Arrival at the Department of State






After her arrival there was the ceremonial swearing in, and then she was on her skateboard and off to the far corners of the earth as our top diplomat!
Date: 02/02/2009 Description: Vice President Biden swears in Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Joining Secretary Clinton is her husband, former President Bill Clinton, their daughter Chelsea Clinton, and Secretary Clinton's mother Dorothy Rodham.

Hillary Clinton’s Ceremonial Swearing-In






End of Part One.


Related:

Hillary Clinton’s 'Hard Choices' Retrospective: Introduction