"What exactly is this foreign policy experience? Was she negotiating treaties? Was she handling crises? The answer is no." So said then Democrat primary opponent Barrack Obama of his chief rival for president, Sen. Hillary Clinton. "Campaigns are ever thus."
The man now selected to serve as White House counsel in the Obama administration, Greg Craig, noted, “She did not sit in on any National Security Council meetings when she was first lady. There is no reason to believe ... that she was a key player in foreign policy at any time during the Clinton administration.”
But that was then.
Obama adviser Susan Rice shredded the notion that Clinton could acquire foreign policy experience through marital osmosis: “There is no crisis to be dealt with or managed when you are first lady. You don't get that kind of experience by being married to a commander in chief."
In March, adviser to the Obama campaign on foreign policy Robert Gelbard, who once worked for the Clinton administration, allowed that Clinton may have had more involvement in foreign policy than a lot of first ladies but, he cautioned, “her role was limited and I've been surprised at the claims that she had a much greater role."
That was then.
And now?
Quoth Gergen: “Generally speaking, there is a recognition that campaigns bring a certain amount of hyperbole, and when it's over you try to find the most talented people you can find to work with you."
So, hyperbole; that’s what it was.
Sort of makes you wonder how many other of the claims made during the primary by Obama and the Obama camp – not excluding his vow to withdraw troops from Iraq and recommit them to Afghanistan – were hyperbolic.
It will be left to the new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to sort it all out. As the wife of former President Bill Clinton, she has had some experience in this area.
The man now selected to serve as White House counsel in the Obama administration, Greg Craig, noted, “She did not sit in on any National Security Council meetings when she was first lady. There is no reason to believe ... that she was a key player in foreign policy at any time during the Clinton administration.”
But that was then.
Obama adviser Susan Rice shredded the notion that Clinton could acquire foreign policy experience through marital osmosis: “There is no crisis to be dealt with or managed when you are first lady. You don't get that kind of experience by being married to a commander in chief."
In March, adviser to the Obama campaign on foreign policy Robert Gelbard, who once worked for the Clinton administration, allowed that Clinton may have had more involvement in foreign policy than a lot of first ladies but, he cautioned, “her role was limited and I've been surprised at the claims that she had a much greater role."
That was then.
And now?
Quoth Gergen: “Generally speaking, there is a recognition that campaigns bring a certain amount of hyperbole, and when it's over you try to find the most talented people you can find to work with you."
So, hyperbole; that’s what it was.
Sort of makes you wonder how many other of the claims made during the primary by Obama and the Obama camp – not excluding his vow to withdraw troops from Iraq and recommit them to Afghanistan – were hyperbolic.
It will be left to the new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to sort it all out. As the wife of former President Bill Clinton, she has had some experience in this area.
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