New York, July 20 (ANI): Is U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton being politically marginalised by President Barack Among Barack Obama? An article in the New York Daily News certainly thinks so
According to the tabloid, Obama has made Hillary Clinton nearly invisible, something his predecessor George W.Bush could never manage.
Clinton's recent speech at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) was designed to highlight her heavyweight status within the Obama administration, but according to the NY Daily News, it did just the opposite, confirming the sense she is being marginalized on foreign policy.
"The campaign to puff her up was too obvious. She stacked the room with aides and her team talked up the "muscular" approach she would take toward Iran. To get ready for her closeup, Clinton shed the sling she has worn since breaking her elbow. All for naught. The appearance raised fresh questions about her reduced role because the speech was a tired rehash of existing themes and broke no new policy ground," says the paper.
"A damp squib" one disappointed critic called it.
It certainly didn't help that Obama upstaged her by appearing at about the same time to talk about health care.
That she and Obama are entering a Cold War phase was predictable.
According to the paper, signs of friction between thetwo first surfaced in December last year.
Five days after the June 12 elections, as Obama hesitated to condemn Iran for cracking down on protesters, The New York Times, citing anonymous sources, reported that Clinton and others were pushing Obama to get tougher.
Obama finally managed to find his voice on June 23, saying he was "appalled and outraged" at the violence. Within days, another report surfaced from the State Department, saying Clinton hadn't known in advance when he would follow her advice.
The frost extends to hiring. A testy Clinton grumbled last week about the White House vetting process, saying, "It's hard to justify not having our full government in place six months after we started."
She could have been talking about her move to hire Sidney Blumenthal, a partisan Clinton warrior in her husband's White House. The plan to retain him as an adviser, leaked to a Clinton-friendly Web site, apparently has been rejected by the Obama White House.
Perhaps it had something to do with Blumenthal's role in Hillary's campaign, where he specialized in accusations that Obama was weak on foreign policy. You can hardly blame Obama for blackballing him.
But Clinton also was blocked from putting her picks in some ambassadorial jobs and her top aide on Iran, Dennis Ross, was transferred to the White House.
"Yet despite official assurances from both camps that all is well between them, the overarching sense is that Obama and Clinton have unfinished business. (ANI)
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