The Secretary: A journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the heart of American power
by Mark Pabst The Financialist
Hillary Clinton may no longer be the U.S. Secretary of State, but she is still a going political concern. Given her boundless ambition and widespread name recognition, her name always tops the list of potential presidential candidates in 2016. If she chooses to run, her success or failure may very well rest on how voters view her tenure as President Barack Obama’s diplomat-in-chief. Her political opponents seem well aware of this. Even though she is now a private citizen, congressional Republicans continue to allege that Clinton covered up facts associated with the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya at the hands of Islamist militants. Still, the charges do not seem to be hurting her popularity much: A recent Washington Post/ABC poll showed that 62 percent of Americans approve of her job performance.
They won’t find much to challenge that view in Kim Ghattas’ new book, “The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power.” Ghattas covered Clinton as a correspondent for the BBC, and her book is a generally sympathetic account of Clinton’s time as America’s top diplomat. The book combines elements of memoir with reportage, borrowing from Ghattas’ personal life, her time in the diplomatic press pool and her journalistic efforts to make sense of American foreign policy.
At times, one wonders if Ghattas’ mix of personal history and reporting conceals a lack of inside information about the secretary. Though she traveled hundreds of thousands of miles with Clinton, Ghattas never seems to have discovered what makes Hillary tick. Her characterization of Clinton’s diplomatic principles is largely gleaned from press conferences, and she often chooses to highlight style over substance. She mentions Clinton’s chic pantsuits and admires the “impeccably styled jet-black hair” of the secretary’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin. She also notes Clinton’s penchant for wearing sunglasses on cloudy days, the somewhat shabby state of the secretary’s aging plane and the quality of the chocolate chip cookies provided by the U.S. Air Force. Deep insights, these are not.
But for all that, “The Secretary” also takes a serious look at the United States’ changing role in the world and Clinton’s attempts to mend fences following the Bush administration’s often heavy-handed approach to international relations. The book makes it clear that both Clinton and Ghattas believe America’s ability to act alone in world affairs is quickly ebbing and that the secretary’s greatest challenge was to effectively utilize soft power to strengthen relations with key strategic allies, including Russia, a notoriously volatile partner.
Still, in the end, “The Secretary” is a better measure of the discipline practiced by both Clinton and her entourage than it is a successful account of her diplomatic endeavors. As Ghattas points out, many members of the team that Clinton brought with her to the State Department also worked on her unsuccessful 2008 presidential run. Team Hillary clearly impressed Ghattas with its gravitas, charmed her with its style and refused to let her get any unguarded moments with Clinton. Ultimately, such message discipline underscores the fearsome political strength of Clinton and company. A subject who hews to a relentless drumbeat of talking points may make for a weak book, but perhaps without realizing it, Ghattas has shown us why Hillary will be the person to beat if she does throw her hat in the ring in 2016.
Photo courtesy of sskennel via Compfight cc
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