Tuesday: Hillary Clinton Meets the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Today, Senator Hillary Clinton will go before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in order to prove herself worthy to be Secretary of State.

Ok, we all know how this is going to go.  She is going to be clear, concise and direct and will include brief summaries to reinforce her main ideas.  Also, she will avoid the use of “ah” or “um” which convey a sense of hesitation to the listener.  In other words, she will prove herself to be the commanding, assertive, knowledgeable person who does her homework and consults with experts in the field so that she knows the political landscape better than anyone else in the country.  By the end of today, we are all going to be scratching our heads wondering why we didn’t elect her instead.  No, no, Obots, this is not a recent phenomenon or a fluke.  She’s *always* been this way.  You just couldn’t see it with all the smoke in your eyes.

In the meantime, the NYTimes has compiled a set of questions from foreign policy experts that they want Hillary to answer.  Some of them are openly hostile, especially from Fouad Ajami who asks:

1. In 1913, Woodrow Wilson appointed William Jennings Bryan secretary of state for solely domestic political reasons. He needed but distrusted him, and thus relied on other advisers to conduct diplomacy. Have you read up on Wilson’s relationship with Bryan, and will it be relevant to your own situation?  (excuse me?  Hillary reads up on EVERYTHNG, wanker)

2. In the past, you have taken different positions on Iraq. As secretary of state, which of these foreign policy positions are you likely to adopt? Will you be the hawk who voted to authorize the war, or the war critic who referred to reports of progress in Iraq as requiring a “willing suspension of disbelief?”  (depends on the methods we used to achieve “progress” and what the media has refused to report on during the election season, wouldn’t you say?)

3. You speak about the 1990s, President Bill Clinton’s era, as a time of peace and prosperity. Yet the ‘90s witnessed a steady trail of anti-American terrorism that emboldened Al Qaeda’s leaders. In the Clinton era, terrorism was generally viewed as a law enforcement problem. Did we really do so well in handling terrorism in the 1990s?  (Um, yes.  There were no 9/11’s or anthrax attacks during the Clinton admin.  The first attack on the WTC was not followed by a second one and law enforcement was all done in a lawful manner.  So what’s your point?)

Yep, no hostility there.  It’s still Bill Clinton’s fault as far as Fouad’s concerned.  But Wangari Matthai and Walter Russel Mead ask some pretty thoughtful questions like:

3. African leadership is seeking closer ties with the East, especially China, which is willing to do business without conditions like respect for human rights. How will the United States address Africans’ willingness to sacrifice some of the most important principles of democracy and good governance?

and

1. The chances of peace between Israel and Gaza seem more remote than ever. Many of the Palestinians in Gaza are impoverished refugees and the overcrowded Gaza Strip has few resources. The two-state solution offers little hope for these people; that is one reason Gaza has historically tended to support radical Palestinian parties like Hamas. How will you make the two-state solution popular among the people of Gaza?

Oddly enough, not one of them involve how many times a month she and the Big Dawg have conjugal visits.  We are grateful for small favors.

Personally, after all the vetting, when she shows definitively that she is the best man and woman for the job, I wish she would say, “On second thought, I’d like to stay in the Senate.  I think I’d do a better job than Caroline Kennedy and let’s face it, there’s no consolation prize for being swindled out of the presidency by your own party.  Yeah, being the foreign president would be a nice addition to my CV, but completely unnecessary.  Surely, SURELY, you can find someone to do this job as well as I can.”

Probably not but if Senator “I-went-to-elementary-school-in-Indonesia!” would like to switch places before the inauguration seals the fate of our country for the next four years, I’d like to hear how *he* would answer the questions the experts would put before him.

On second thought, forget it,  I’m sure my ears would bleed.

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