When the plainly inimical FOX channel has a long-time Hillary Clinton supporter like Lanny Davis on and claims he cannot come up with a single thing she accomplished as Secretary of State, it is easily corrected by Davis himself. When the folks who are supposedly on her side come after her we begin to perceive a developing theme.
Today on MTP, Andrea Mitchell implied that Hillary used her post at the State Department to line up donors for a presidential campaign. I will not embed the video. The link is here. This is not only reprehensible behavior on the part of Mitchell but a dead giveaway of what is amounting to the MSNBC backlash against Hillary who has not said a word about running much to their frustration.
The idea that Hillary, a dedicated public servant, used her position for personal and political gain was first floated on Morning Joe by the father of one of the co-anchors, a noted progressive political consultant. Many Hillary Clinton loyalists do not trust Zbigniew Brzezinski. We expected better from Mitchell, but like the print journalists assigned to the Hillary Clinton beat (Maggie Haberman, Amy Chozick, and most recently, Brianna Keilar) girls just wanna have jobs. So we can expect that they will do as directed by management and aim and fire to avoid skiing the penalty loop.
For those who need their memories refreshed and those who never paid attention in the first place, here are just a few of Hillary's accomplishments while at the helm of the State Department edited and reprinted from a previous post.
The State Department under Hillary Clinton did what it could in the face of a silent, hesitant President during the Green Revolution. Aware that people in the streets of Tehran and other cities were depending on Twitter to communicate life-and-death information and learning that Twitter intended to close down for maintenance, Hillary Clinton prevailed upon Twitter to leave the lines of communication open. They did, as those of us who spent those weekends retweeting important tweets from Iran can attest.
She was instrumental, as well, in getting hard sanctions against Iran which helped bring about the current detente.
From April until she fell ill in December of 2012 Hillary Clinton attended at least five meetings of the group called Friends of the Syrian People and was scheduled for another which she could not attend due to her illness. The Friends of the Syrian People have been working on international sanctions to divest Syria of chemical weapons and to assist the refugees of that civil conflict.
Hillary Clinton and Russia's Sergei Lavrov worked exceedingly well together and achieved the very crucial New START treaty. This was immense, a great victory for both diplomats and both countries. Their relationship remained solid throughout her tenure.
Here are a few other things she did.
>For the first time in its history she completely overhauled the State Department , USAID, and interagency cooperation with her Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR).
>For the first time in history she called all of the chiefs of mission together at the State Department for annual conferences.
>She instituted an Office of Global Women's Issues.
>In June 2009 she provided benefits to domestic partners of foreign service diplomats for the first time.
>She brought previously neglected countries back to the table with numerous memoranda of understanding and countless business initiatives.
>She kept the alliance between Afghanistan and Pakistan stable despite enormous challenges.
>She reopened the vital supply route from Pakistan into Afghanistan.
>She ensured U.S. access to the vital Manas airstip in Kyrgystan.
>She Salvaged the Turkey-Armenia accords which she was supposed to simply witness when they suddenly nearly fell apart.
>She brought issues like human trafficking as well as violence against women and LGBT communities to the international table.
These are a few things that come to mind. I probably have left out some important events. Hillary Clinton has left an indelible mark on the State Department and has brought its operations into the 21st century with her integration of social networking into our outreach to the world. She was a tremendously effective Secretary of State and a hero to many, our own troops at war among them. We can be appreciative of her selfless service and proud of the job she has done.
To suggest that she, in any way, used her post for any gain beyond those for the country she served so patriotically is highly contemptible.
