If there are people who find the silence deafening, there are some reasons why we are not hearing from Hillary Clinton on the subject of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
First and foremost, she is not POTUS. People should not complain about her not doing something they failed to hire her to do. In 2007 and 2008, Hillary told us of many things she would do if we hired her. I, personally, voted to hire her, but she did not get the job!
Second, she has been a little busy lately:
- The Japanese decided NOT to press us to move the Futenma base thanks to her.
- She managed to get a U.S.A. Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo built, staffed, opened.
- She has been trying to convince China to support a strong North Korea sanction.
- She has been supporting our ally, South Korea.
- She spent the better part of a week .getting Hamid Karzai back under our tent and away from the Taliban.
- For the past month, she has been the leader of the U.S. delegation to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference.
This conference ended about a half hour ago, and her meeting this morning with Ambassador Rice had everything to do with her position as chief of that delegation since that Treaty hit some rough spots, and we still have no news of whether the final draft was approved. Read about that here.
UN nuclear conference gets last-minute draft statement
**UPDATE** The State Department just posted the highlights of the adopted treaty document.
Now directly prior to attending the opening of that conference, she appeared on Meet the Press and she did speak about offshore drilling then. You can see her remarks on video at that link. However, since that appearance she has been a bit busy doing the job she DID get, and doing it very well.
So if she's silent on the Gulf disaster (in fairness, her State Department has conferred with Cuba about this, and I am certain the subject came up during President Calderon's visit, also) so what? What do people expect her to say? The guy who got the job should be acting on that. Speeches and comments are one thing. Actions speak best.
CORRECTION: She did address the spill in her press availablitity yesterday with Sri Lankan External Minister Peiris.
QUESTION: Madam Secretary, thank you. So many eyes today on the oil spill, and we know there have been some offers of assistance from other countries. From where you stand, from your perspective, do you want more offers of assistance? And are you disappointed that more hasn’t been accepted by the United States and the oil company, as so many people in the United States are clamoring for more booms, et cetera? And also, what message do you have to America’s neighbors who may experience the ill effects of the spill?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Charley, the United States Government is working every second of every minute to mitigate the effects of this terrible oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. We are very grateful for the generous offers of assistance that we’ve received from 17 countries and the European Union, including the European Maritime Safety Agency, the environment unit of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the United Nations Environment Program, and the International Maritime Organization.
Countries from all over the world have offered general assistance and then some have made very specific offers, including experts in various aspects of oil spill impacts, research, and technical expertise and equipment, including booms, dispersants, oil pumps and skimmers. And we are very thankful for all of these efforts. The U.S. Coast Guard, which is the lead agency in the U.S. Government’s response efforts, continues to monitor developments, evaluate specific needs, assess offers of assistance, and determine our response.
While no offers of direct material assistance have been required by the United States Government thus far, we have accepted and are grateful for assistance in the form of notification regarding the spill sent by the International Maritime Organization to its member states and coordination of EU offers of assistance. And BP has accepted boom and skimmers offered by the governments of Mexico and Norway in coordination with the Unified Area Command. We are in very close, constant communication with other countries that border the Gulf.
This is just a terrible environmental disaster and we are working very hard with all of our partners to try to contain it, prevent further damage. But because of the extraordinary nature of this particular disaster, it is taking some time to fully bring to bear all of the material that is needed. But as the President said yesterday, this is the highest priority from the President on down to every federal government representative that is in the Gulf trying to work to mitigate the impact. But we are, as I said in the beginning, very grateful for the concern and the offers from our partners and friends around the world.
