Daily Kos: Job titles do not necessarily equate to accomplishments or qualifications

[merrily]

I have posted about my three reasons why Hillary is not my candidate: her Iraq War advocacy; her "racially-tinged" 2008 primary campaign against Obama; and her role in propagating the DLC gospel.

http://sync.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1277&pid=7603


While searching for something else, I got linked to a Daily Kos article citing a different three reasons why, according to that poster, Hillary should never be President.

One of the points made by the Daily Kos article (rather harshly) was that having a job does not necessarily mean that one accomplished anything while holding the job. So, I did some quick research myself and then I asked in this group for Hillary's accomplishments as a senator and as secretary of state. I did not get much by way of specific things for which she was clearly responsible.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12779238 (senator)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12779243 (Secretary of State)

In fact, one DUer said it didn't even matter if she had accomplished anything as Secretary of State!

I had forgotten about the daily kos article until I watched on DU this morning a video of Mark Halperin interviewing Democrats in iowa While some claimed that Hillary's stint as Secretary of State meant she had foreign policy expertise, none of them could answer Halperin's question about her accomplishments while Secretary of State.

See also http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/05/20/iowa-democrats-cant-name-a-single-accomplishment-of-hillary-clintons-as-secretary-of-state-does-it-matter/

I think that, if Hillary makes it to the general, more and more will be made of all three points cited in the Daily Kos article. Will anyone be so indelicate as to point them out during the primary? Dunno.


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/13/1255276/-3-Big-Reasons-Hillary-Clinton-Should-Never-Be-President#

[truebluegreen]

1. Excellent points, and questions...

(OT--thought I was alone in my insomnia tonight)

[merrily]

2. Thank you.

I sleep. Not a heck of a lot, though.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. Well, there's Burma...

and nobody can show anywhere where she screwed things up any worse than they were. Name any other SoS who did much more (Kissinger doesn't count).

She logged a lot of miles pushing US interests and calming hotspots-- which is most of what the SoS job is about.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. 'calming hotspots' is one of those sort of vague

hard to prove or disprove things. You'd need to see an alternate universe in which she wasn't present to see whether or not what she did actually helped 'calm' anything, or made any real difference. You can make whatever claims you want as to how things would have turned out without her, and no one can prove you right or wrong.

Was the world 'calmer' after her stint in office than before? I don't think so. Would it have been calmer or less calm without her? Who can know?

[TreasonousBastard]

5. True-- the best that can be said is that she didn't...

obviously make anything worse than it already was.

[merrily]

10. "Obviously" being perhaps the key word. That we know of yet.

And even that will probably get disagreement.

[merrily]

7. Can you say a bit more about Burma, please.

[TreasonousBastard]

20. That was the first American visit in 50 years...

back in 2011, and her visit with Aung San Suu Kyi was as close to opening the country as it gets.

Burma, or Myanmar as it prefers to be known, was, and largely still is, down there in the Asian pits with North Korea and still hasn't fully dumped its military junta or dealt with human rights abuses.

But, Hillary started them on the right track.

[merrily]

22. Thank you. OK she visited for the first time. Obama, too. Whose idea? Did it have to do with TPP?

But, Hillary started them on the right track.

What do we have that backs up that statement? Isn't an assumption? And what about Obama?

[TreasonousBastard]

25. Probably nothing to do with the TPP...

but I don't remember too many of the details.

Aung San Suu Kyi was a really big deal at the time.

[merrily]

26. Obama's presence was a much bigger deal than Hillary's. I also see nothing to indicate

that it was her initiative, rather than his.

Obama was greeted with euphoria in Burma, where where tens of thousands of people lined the streets of Yangon to cheer the first American president to visit a country that until recently had long been isolated from the West. “You gave us hope,” Obama declared in Yangon.

......


From the airport, Obama headed straight to the Peace Palace for a meeting with Hun Sen that later was described by U.S. officials as a tense encounter dominated by the president voicing concerns about Cambodia’s human rights record. He specifically raised the lack of free and fair elections, the detention of political prisoners and land seizures, officials said.

Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said Obama told the prime minister that those issues are “an impediment” to a deeper relationship between the U.S. and Cambodia. Rhodes said Hun Sen defended his country’s record, saying unique circumstances motivate its policies and practices. Still, the prime minister expressed a desire to deepen ties with the U.S., Rhodes said.

Earlier in Burma, Obama addressed a national audience from the University of Yangon, offering a “hand of friendship” and a lasting U.S. commitment, yet a warning, too. He said the new civilian government must nurture democracy or watch it, and U.S. support, disappear.

The six-hour stop in Burma was the centerpiece of a four-day trip to Southeast Asia that began in Bangkok and ends Tuesday in Cambodia, where Obama will visit with Chinese, Japanese and Southeast Asia leaders in addition to attending the East Asia Summit with regional leaders.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/barack-obama-hillary-clinton-have-emotional-visit-with-burma-democracy-activist-aung-san-suu-kyi

Also, while Aung San Suu Kyi did get coverage, I think it's naive to assume it had nothing to do with the TPP. More was done with that after the trip than anything else. In either case, I really don't see claiming the credit (or blame) for Hillary, rather than Obama.

The visit (Hillary's) comes weeks after President Obama toured Asia and made a series of announcements bolstering American commitments in the region.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-15997268

[antigop]

6. as SOS, she helped multinational corporations and helped draft the TPP

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101667554

eta: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017187035

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

8. And there we come to the crux of the matter.

Do we sign on to the notion that 'What is good for GM is good for America'? The GOP and the corporatist Dems certainly believe that. Look at the TPP and how they've been dipping the NSA into corporate things as well as 'terrorism'. They think they're 'doing right by America' by spending all of their time helping out the biggest corporations.

Now from over here on the left, that looks like helping corporations become even more powerful and subverting the function of government. So the folks in the 'center' actually think those are 'accomplishments', while those of us on the left think she was actually working for 'they the corporations', not 'we the people'.

[antigop]

11. her undersecretary for economic growth: former vice chair Goldman Sachs

per the article above

[antigop]

13. +100 nt

[kath]

32. +1000

[merrily]

9. Helping multinationals is undoubtedly a large part of the responsibilities of any SOS.

This is one of the many, many forms of corporate welfare and no doubt TPP will not improve that.

[antigop]

12. Erich's post #8 above...

You have to ask the question, "Would she work for the corporations instead of us?"

I know my answer.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

14. Should we actually accept that?

WHY is helping multinationals 'part of the responsibility of any SoS'? Do we not believe in 'Free markets'? Are businesses citizens? Is any particular business vital to the interests of the country? And if, hypothetically, there is a business that is vital to the interests of the nation, why is it a private or public concern? Why hasn't it been nationalized? Shouldn't any business vital to the nation be actually owned and run BY the nation?

[Sunlei]

16. I wish we had public owned utilities, grocery stores and gas stations. but we don't

It takes someone a public figure willing to set-up such a Corp. and for the entire time America has existed no person has even tried to set-up any public owned corp or bank.

[merrily]

21. You probably know my answers, right?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

23. Well, I would hope they're the same as mine, but you did repeat the idea that

such was actually part of the duty of any Secretary of State, and without a sarcasm tag, so I wondered if you had simply internalized the RW viewpoint on that one, like the centrists/corporatists do.

I think that's a danger for any of us, that we can simply accept damaging ideas simply because they're presented to us as 'just the way things are'. I'm sure there are a variety of such ideas that I still accept, simply because I haven't examined them in terms of how they affect actual humans, and because the corporatists have controlled the dialogue for so long, spread so much propaganda.

[merrily]

24. I was describing what I believe to be currently the reality, not what I would like to see or what I

think should be. And I said TPP would not improve that, which suggests that I think the currently reality needs improvement.

[merrily]

27. PS. Just noticed: I also called it a form of corporate welfare.

[antigop]

30. no, we should not. I know you didn't address the question to me. nt

[merrily]

17. I don't actually know what Obama is or is not over or who he trusts.

It's my personal view that he and the Clintons made a deal in 2008 and each of them have lived up to their respective bargains. And, the deal was based on their respective personal ambitions. Speculation, yes, but it was my view then and remains so.

However, even if you are correct, why would on earth would Obama's supposedly accepting something mean that I have to accept it as well? That seems like a rather bizarre notion.

Besides, this thread is not even about any of that.

[Sunlei]

18. I don't mean blindly follow Obamas choices, but at this point his opinion carries a lot of weight to

me.

sorry, I just noticed your topic and this forum name. I posted from reading the list of 'most current threads' and your topic was on top. I'll delete my post, sorry.

[merrily]

19. No, you shouldn't delete it. Nothing was wrong with it as far as the forum.

That is my opinon as a poster and as a host.

[SheilaT]

28. The Peter Principle.

The book came out in 1970. If you haven't read it, try to do so.

The underlying theme is that people are promoted until they reach a level where they are no longer competent. And then they stay at that level. Scary. And all too true in my observation. It also means that the vast majority of people who are never promoted, who are in an entry-level or not far above entry-level position, are probably pretty competent at what they do.

Really good book.

[merrily]

29. Never read it. However, the Kos article went well beyond saying that SOS was the only

job where she did not excel. So, I don't know if the Peter Principle applies.

[Warpy]

31. Your points are valid but the Kos article is a hit piece

Ted Rall is usually a little more insightful than that.

I do agree that she seemed like a place holder as Secretary of State and produced no new groundbreaking alliances or treaties. She didn't screw things up, either, something you can't say about the Republicans in the office before her.

I don't agree that her personal life makes her a bad role model. Bad role models screw up their own lives. I especially don't think she's dumb.

What I do find disturbing is her inability/unwillingness to deal with the shortcomings of her DLC campaign organization, the very thing that cost her the nomination in 2008. Instead of anticipating Sanders and Warren, she's been out in right field and reacting to them late and very reluctantly. Populism isn't her style, I do get that, but times are changing and she doesn't seem to be capable of changing with them.

Clinton would be a dream candidate in good economic times, promising stability and business as usual. I'm afraid that message is falling flat to the 90% who have been in recession for 7 years and only appeals to the 10% who have benefited from the hyperinflated stock market. No one is going to get elected with 10% of the vote.

[merrily]

33. The daily kos article is harshly written, undoubtedly.

But, if she makes it to the general, those points and more are going to come up.