“They made it crystal clear that the ask was from Hillary”

[riversedge]

12. The content is from a new book: ‘HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton,’

Actually it looks interesting. Will have to check the local library and get a copy. The book has been out for a over a year. time fo rme to do some catching up. Lots of reviews with Google search. Here is just one:



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HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton,’ by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes


By Liza Mundy February 6, 2014


.....In this way, the book tells a number of stories. It is the story of Hillary Clinton’s foray into global diplomacy as well as management of a vast bureaucracy; and of her resurrection from the setback and mistakes of 2008. The authors describe her State Department leadership as strong but not dazzling: a “workmanlike enhancement of diplomacy and development” with “deliverables” that were real but not high-profile — no “marquee peace deal,” for example. But she elevated the stature of State, which lost influence to the CIA and Pentagon during the years when two wars dominated the foreign policy landscape. She worked to win over her employees, fighting for budget increases and going to bat for Foggy Bottom bike commuters. As a member of the Cabinet, she brought star power and a venerable understanding of Washington’s “levers of power.” She defended the president’s health plan against doubting Cabinet colleagues, a moment the authors describe as “pivotal, if underappreciated.”

Part of the rapprochement between Clinton and Obama is the result of self-interest and the ability, of professional politicians, to work together when they have to; but it’s also because people tend to go through what one D.C insider calls the “stages of Hillary.” First, the person explains, you dread working with her, then you begin to grudgingly respect her, and one day you find you like her — won over by her fortitude, her sense of humor, and her ability to overlook episodes like the one where Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau stood beside a cardboard cutout of her and cupped a breast. That Hillary laughed off this punkish disrespect suggests that hit list or no hit list, she is capable of magnanimity.

Her diplomatic achievements were of course marred by the tragedy of Benghazi, where Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were murdered. The book concludes, plausibly, that Hillary was not personally to blame for inadequate security at the diplomatic compound, but the fact that Stevens was there in the first place was the result of her philosophy of “expeditionary diplomacy,” which holds that the United States should have a presence even in dangerous places..............




HRC State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton

By Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes

Crown. 440 pp. $26.