NWV News - Hillary Clinton bids the world farewell, for now

HILLARY CLINTON BIDS THE WORLD FAREWELL, FOR NOW

By NWV News Writer Jim Kouri
Posted 1:00 AM Eastern
February 4, 2013
© 2013 NewsWithViews.com

During her farewell speech on Friday covered by the cable news channels, including Fox News, outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton enthusiastically told her state department staff that the world is a safer place on her last day as America's top diplomat, but the attack on the U.S. embassy in Turkey appeared to be a damper on her claim.

"I am so grateful that we've had a chance to contribute in each of our ways to making our country and our world stronger, safer, and fairer and better," she said to her staff.

"Hillary Clinton is so much like her husband, Bill, who found it hard to face the truth and in fact had a very casual relationship with truth in general," said former law enforcement official and military intelligence officer Joel Gaines.

"Clinton's service as President Barack Obama's Secretary of State will be remembered for the administration's lack of attention to a terrorist attack on a U.S. consulate on Sept. 11, 2012, in Benghazi, Libya. The U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed, but be assured through cover-up, lies and disinformation fed to the American people by her comrades in the news media, the episode will never prevent a Hillary bid for the White House," Gaines said.

"While Obama and Biden may be prone to lying or deceiving, Hillary made being disingenuous an art form," said former police commander and political advisor Kenneth Dugan. "Remember the whoppers she has uttered such as her being named after the guy who climbed Mount Everest? Turned out she was born three years before her mountain climbing namesake scaled Everest."

"Notice that [Hillary] Clinton said she takes responsibility but doesn't say she should be held accountable. In other words, 'Opps, I made a mistake. Sorry.' Then it's case-closed in time for the November election," Duggan added.

According to Thomas Kuiper, editor of the Hillary Clinton quote book, "I've Always Been a Yankees Fan: Hillary Clinton in Her Own Words," Hillary Clinton has a long history of telling whoppers.

"As I document in my book, she lead people to believe that Chelsea was near the World Trade Center on 9/11, a claim which Chelsea herself disputed," Kuiper noted.

On one occasion, she implied that she was named after the man who first climbed Mount Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary, but he climbed Mount Everest years after she was born. "She also said that she and Bill wanted another child, a maternal desire quickly forgotten after election time! Hillary is not just about pandering, but about rewriting history and her place in it," the author stated.

"There is not an ounce of authenticity to her public pronouncements," adds Kuiper. "Hillary is attempting to rewrite the past, but the truth is out there. My book uses dozens upon dozens of independent sources to paint a picture of the real Hillary — a person who is often profane and always ambitious beyond justification."

Political strategist Mike Baker said it succinctly: "As Hillary Clinton asked a senate panel investigating the Benghazi cover-up, 'what difference does it make?'"

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton turned over her office to Sen. John Kerry, she stated on Friday during her speech at the Council on Foreign Relations that America is at fault for the unrest in the Muslim world because of a failure to explain U.S. policies.

When a reporter questioned Clinton on why favoritism toward America by the Muslim nations during the Obama administration has been considerably lower than during the Bush administration, Clinton responded: "I take responsibility, along with our entire government and our Congress and perhaps our private sector."

"In other words, everyone is responsible because most Americans are part of the private sector. The fact is the people in Islamic nations hate America because most of its citizens are not Muslims and the U.S. people for the most part support Israel," said political consultant and attorney Jacob Wollinsky.

Clinton made her remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington in her final address as secretary of state. She stepped down on Friday and is succeeded by Democratic Senator John Kerry.

The former-First Lady and U.S. Senator said one of the reasons is the United States has "not done a very good job in recent years reaching out in a public media way or in a culturally effective way to explain ourselves."

But Obama's continuous Muslim outreach effort included a variety of controversial moves, including the rewriting of the curriculum for training federal law enforcement officials in anti-terrorism by eliminating all references to Islamic terrorism or that portray Muslims negatively, according to Judicial Watch analysts in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

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Clinton claimed she had encountered many depictions on U.S. policies by media in Arab and Muslim world, which she believed are “absolutely untrue." "Our response has been -- nobody will either believe it or we can't possibly contest it," Clinton said.

To change the dynamics, Clinton called for active engagement with the media in the region, including al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite television channel. Ironically, her husband's vice president, Al Gore, recently sold his cable channel Current TV to al-Jazeera after turning down an offer by talk host and author Glenn Beck.

"You can't be in the arena and expect there to be a change if you're not willing to get off the bench," she said. "And from my perspective, that's our fault."