Remember Amy Chozick? The Wall Street Journal reporter who told us in the summer of 2008 that Barack Obama's presidential campaign risked ending in failure because he was in unappealingly good physical shape, supporting her too-skinny-to-be-president thesis with unattributed McCain campaign talking points, as well as a smattering of online comments she solicited from people who curiously seemed to exist online just long enough to provide Chozick with those quotes?
Chozick has failed upward, or at least laterally -- she's now at The New York Times, and today she's sensing doom for another Democrat's presidential hopes, because, well ... allow her to explain it:
This month at a symposium at Georgetown University on Afghan women, Secretary of State John Kerry praised his predecessor, Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom he referred to as "Madam Secretary-Senator-First-Lady-Everything."So Kerry praised her for her work as a senator, first lady, and secretary of state -- but Chozick and her (unnamed) fretful sources think Americans stick their fingers in their ears and say "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" when anyting on Clinton's resume is mentioned other than her work for women's rights, with the result being that we're now thinking, "Hey, we can't vote for her for president! All she's ever done in her life is fight for women's rights!"
He called her one of the country's "remarkable secretaries of state," and said that "nobody has done more to advance the cause of women" than she had.
Mr. Kerry's remarks drew applause from the crowd, but they also pointed to a dilemma for Mrs. Clinton in the effort to define her tenure as secretary of state. She did devote much of her time at the State Department to advancing women's and girls' issues and believes those efforts have deeper implications in democratization and diplomacy.
But some people close to Mrs. Clinton worry that, because of the high profile given to her work for women's rights, and the headlines now being generated by the hyperkinetic Mr. Kerry, her efforts on trickier diplomatic situations have been eclipsed....
What about her 13 trips to Libya in 2011 to build the coalition that led to the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, they ask. Why is no one talking about how she brokered a cease-fire in Gaza? Anyone remember that she furthered economic sanctions on North Korea?The memoir will be published more than a year and a half before the 2016 primaries begin. But the time to fret is now! Because what if one of the most famous and admired people in America writes a memoir and nobody reads it or writes about it or interviews her when she's promoting it? (I think that's the point being made by Chozick and her anonymous hand-wringers.)
... Her biggest chance to shape how she is viewed may be through her memoir, which is due out next summer.
Yes, it's true: John Kerry got a deal with the Iranians, and Hillary Clinton didn't. Admittedly, Kerry's deal is under relentless attack in Washington -- but it still makes Hillary look bad not to have negotiated the second Munich, according to Chozick.
Chozick's article ends with this:
[A former State Department official] pointed to her apology to Pakistan last summer after American airstrikes in 2011 killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers. Critics jumped on the move, calling it part of Mr. Obama's "apology tour" to the Muslim world.I think Chozick's anonymous source is saying that this proves Hillary did more as secretary of state than hold hands with fellow feminists and sing "I Am Woman." I think Chozick is quoting this to make that point, and also to make the point that Clinton really could suffer for a decision like that in 2016 in Iowa, because, y'know, Obama is always apologizing to brown people who aren't Christian, isn't he? And Hillary was helping.
This person said of the apology, "That's not exactly the politically expedient thing to do in the Iowa caucus."
All of which is ludicrous. First of all, the U.S. reused to apologize until seven months after the airstrike. And the airstrike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers -- these guys are supposed to be our allies, remember? And the apology, when it finally came, ended a stalemate and resulted in the reopening of supply routes used by NATO forces in Afghanistan. So this wasn't Clinton and Obama donning love beads and saying "I'm sorry" to Muslims 'cuz they hate Jesus.
And why would this be a problem in Iowa anyway? Hillary Clinton apologized to the Pakistanis five years before the Iowa caucuses, so Iowa Democrats with very long memories are going to vote for, um ... Elizabeth Warren? Seriously?
Enough. My head hurts.
(Via EricBoehlert.)
