When voters are asked specific things [Hillary Clinton] did as secretary of state, they don’t actually know anything.
“What did she accomplish that you consider significant as secretary of state?” Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin asked a focus group of Iowa Democrats.
The responses:
“I really can’t name anything off the top of my head.”
“Give me a minute. Give me two minutes.”
“Umm … no.”
—Washington Post, May 20, 2015
“The Washington consensus,” Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute said, “is that [Hillary] was enormously ineffective [as secretary of state] . . . [though] no one was quite sure whether she was ineffective because she wanted to avoid controversy or because she wasn’t trusted by the president to do anything.”
In either case, the question that begged to be answered was: Could Hillary point to any accomplishments during her four years as secretary of state?
With a tip of the hat to David Letterman, here is how I sum up Hillary’s record.
TOP TEN REASONS HILLARY WANTS TO FORGET HER TIME AT FOGGY BOTTOM
Number 10: I busted my butt offering Russia a “reset,” but I didn’t know Putin would translate the word to mean he could reset the Soviet Union’s old borders and seize control of Crimea.
Number 9: I talked Obama into getting rid of Gaddafi, but I didn’t know those wild and crazy guys in Libya would let their country become a major breeding ground for the Islamic State.
Number 8: I “pivoted” to Asia, but I didn’t know Beijing would pivot right back by launching an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea and scaring the hell out of America’s friends.
Number 7: I refused to put Boko Haram on a list of foreign terror groups, but I didn’t know those ingrates would continue to rape hundreds of women and girls in an effort to create a new generation of Islamist militants.
Number 6: I sent former CIA spook Frank Wisner to Cairo to persuade President Mubarak to step down in favor of an orderly transition to democracy, but Mubarak laughed Wisner out of the Heliopolis Palace.
Number 5: I vowed to restore “America’s standing around the world,” but our enemies heard me say, “America will just stand around” while they take advantage of us.
Number 4: I made a promise to Obama that the Clinton Foundation wouldn’t take donations from foreigners while I was secretary of state, but these days who can tell a foreigner from a native-born American?
Number 3: I received a report about the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi from my secret agent Sidney Blumenthal, but who listens to someone whose conspiracy theories earned him the nickname “Grassy Knoll”?
Number 2: I used a personal e-mail address with the initials of my maiden name (hdr22@clintonemail.com), but I didn’t know people would be surprised. After all, Hillary Diane Rodham has always been the real me—not “Mrs. Clinton.”
And Number 1: I racked up nearly a million miles in the air as secretary of state, but it turned out to be harder than I thought to cash in the frequent-flier miles for a ticket to the White House.