Hillary Clinton is America’s Voice in the World

The former contender in the fight for the U.S. presidency now cuts a good figure in the U.S. State Department. She has attitude.

One photograph especially represents the past year. It showed the U.S. president and his entourage in the White House situation room as they followed the live broadcast of Osama bin Laden’s liquidation in far away Pakistan. The president concentrates intensely, as do the men around him.

The only one showing any emotion is Hillary Clinton, although everyone may correctly assume that this woman, who has seen it all, has those emotions under control. But no, she reveals her concern by holding her hand in front of her mouth, so that no one would hear her if she screamed. That is a political and cultural watershed.

The one-time presidential contender now cuts an impressive figure as Obama’s Secretary of State. She’s America’s voice in the world. So was Condoleezza Rice. But unlike Rice, Clinton doesn’t want to one-up anyone.

Clinton accomplishes more with her speeches than does any U.N. charter

Her show of emotion about the killing of America’s number one enemy is an appropriate human response and not feminine weakness. Clinton is, as the saying goes, tough; she has attitude. Whether she’s talking with Chinese leaders, the Palestinians, Israelis, the Libyans or the junta in Burma, everyone knows there will be no beating around the bush, no diplomatic niceties.

Now she has confronted the Egyptian military, because their troops have recently brutally attacked female demonstrators. She called such action a “disgrace” that “dishonors the revolution.” For the first time, the Egyptian military council publicly apologized for their treatment of “Egypt’s daughters.” That’s a sensation. Progress may come at a snail’s pace, but it’s nonetheless stirring.

Clinton has accomplished more with her bold speech than any U.N. charter ever has in the battle against the repression of women in the Muslim world, a huge injustice of our age. Hillary Clinton, and not Angela Merkel, is the most powerful woman in the world.