The Mute Star: Hillary Clinton

She should have become the strong woman in Barack Obama’s cabinet, but instead she has been mocked as a weak secretary of state. With her keynote address, she tried for a new beginning – and was countered coldly by the White House. In her speech, though, she had a clear message for Europeans.

Her rich, blue pantsuit shines; the podium is at the Council on Foreign Relations, located at one of the finest addresses in the United States Capitol; the seating arrangements are precisely planned, as if for a campaign event.

Academics wait in the crowd with media bigwigs, international businesspeople, the foreign policy elite in Washington. Top diplomats and U.S. emissaries, officially her inferiors, must take a spot near Clinton. However, in the past months they have often stolen the show from the secretary of state. Richard Holbrooke, for example, responsible for Pakistan and Afghanistan and a giant in both stature and ego, now looks up to Clinton like a well-behaved schoolboy. The host wants to know if any of Clinton’s staff members want to ask a question. Clinton laughs sharply and says, “They’d better not.”

Today “Madam Secretary” should be the only one speaking or giving a speech. Not simply a speech, but the speech. Clinton has been in office six months, high time for a keynote address. “She wants to show her vision for foreign policy,” promises her spokeswoman. Expected is nothing less than a framework for Obama’s global course.

Or perhaps a speech to raise her market value within the administration? The U.S. media has already pegged her as a weak secretary of state. They point out the international trips the president has made while Clinton has to stay at home. And that ambassadorships from Europe to Asia went to big Obama donors, rather than her confidants. And that Clinton had to break her elbow before coming back into the media limelight.

”It’s time for Barack Obama to let Hillary Clinton take off her burqa,” scoffs Tina Brown, star columnist of the web site, ”The Daily Beast.” The president treats his former rival like a Saudi wife.

“It’s kind of like my elbow – It’s getting better every day,” says Clinton during her speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is speaking about foreign policy, of course. Perhaps she should also express her hope for a larger role in the administration.

She is trying for it: For 34 minutes, Clinton fleet-footedly covers the big picture, from Iran, the fight against weapons of mass destruction, the dialogue with the Arab world, more aid for development and “smart power” – America should exert its power resolutely, also reasonably and amiable, in conjunction with allies. “We need a new mindset about how America will use its power,” sums up the secretary of state.

It is a proper foreign policy manifesto, perfectly delivered. If the president was standing up front, he could not have done it better.

There is only one blemish: Almost no one is watching or hearing Clinton.

Whoever is flipping through the U.S. cable channels during the hour of her speech sees live pictures from a press conference about the murder of a couple with 17 kids. Or hears from the Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, who has to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Worse yet: they see President Obama, who stands before the cameras at almost at the same time as Clinton. He has just announced that that his health care reform plan has stalled; he is speaking with nurses behind the Rose Garden of the White House.

The television stations bring him in live: Obama instead of Clinton. For a few minutes, it is as if it were the primary all over again, as both rivals compete on polling day for a TV appearance.

The president’s speech was arranged hastily. “Things like this are arranged,” carps a Washington insider. Maybe that was the plan all along. “Hillary Loses Air War to Obama,” writes the New York Daily News.

Is Clinton being degraded to some sort of administration mascot?

That has to be painful for Clinton. And how. She is said to have worked on the speech for six weeks, her helpers assisted with a public relations offensive. They had spokespeople of other officials praise Clinton’s loyalty and influence in the administration. They reminded everyone how popular the secretary of state is with U.S. citizens, even more so than the president. However logical her reluctance at the beginning of the term was, the president has still outshone her; as a freshly elected U.S. senator, Clinton was also just as inconspicuously initiated.

However, there are 100 U.S. senators, only one secretary of state – and only one Hillary Clinton. Should she be downgraded to an administration mascot, responsible for Haiti and world food events? That was the area about which Clinton, when asked about her role, chimed in.

The speech at the Council on Foreign Relations shows how disappointing that would be, because Clinton’s background encompasses everything needed for U.S. foreign relations. Principles, yes, but no ideology. “Smart power” with a clever view to the changing world.

Europeans should have been listening closely and learning. Many diplomats in Europe believe that Clinton stands closer to Europe than Obama, because she knows the continent better from her years in the White House, and because the commander in chief, as the first president in a globalized world, exercises little patience for the old-fashioned ritual of trans-Atlantic partnership.

Clinton is more patient with Europe. But then, again, she also says, “We are both a trans-Atlantic and a trans-Pacific nation.” She emphasizes, “Our approach to foreign policy must reflect the world as it is, not as it used to be. It does not make sense to adapt a 19th century concert of powers, or a 20th century balance of power strategy.”

That sounds like a very cool look at the world map. Who can America help most with the current global challenge? Where do the greatest dangers lurk? In Clinton’s office too, as her keynote address reminds us, the answers to these types of questions depend increasingly less on Europe. Anne-Marie Slaughter, Clinton’s lead planner, helped write the speech. Earlier, the academic Slaughter was, above all, an expert on Europe; then she spent a year in China. That seems like a career move.

On Friday of this week, Clinton is traveling to India, and soon to Pakistan. At the end of July, she and Timothy Geithner are holding a two-day summit with top governmental officials from China. The agenda sounds as if the future of the world is being debated between Beijing and Washington.

G-20 and G-2 instead of G-8 and the European Union. The global shift in weight that Clinton is talking about is much larger than the question, “Who appears more often on TV, Clinton or Obama?”

Of course, foreign policy politician Clinton is still a politician. Eight times in her speech, she called Obama the “right president.” But she will also coolly analyze the PR disaster around her speech and fight for her influence. She just hired a new advisor, Sidney Blumenthal. He worked in her husband’s White House and for her campaign.

Blumenthal was responsible for the office’s attacks – most recently, against Barack Obama.