Madelaine Albright was US Ambassador to the United Nations,1993-1996, then Secretary of State from 1997-2001. She was part of President Clinton’s policy of putting clueless women out in front of the klieg lights, to appear to be in charge of cabinet agencies while they were being secretly run by Clinton operatives from the shadows. (Webb Hubbell, Reno’s deputy, said that, not me.) Donna Shalala and Janet Reno were other select experiments.
The current administration continues this practice, with luminaries such as Janet Napolitano, Kathleen Sebelius, Susan Rice, and the other Clinton (until only lately). And in an era when optics and style are even more important than the were in the 90’s, this Obama team has outdone the Clinton affirmative action project considerably. I don’t know of any ambassador who died on Madelaine Albright’s watch, or any other ambassador who would march out to lie to protect her.
Still, in her day, Madame Albright was considered on the top ten list of Dumb Broads in Government, along with Barbara Boxer, Maxine Waters and Sheila Jackson Lee. She was pretty average.
Her rating of course was helped by her negotiation of the Nuclear Arms Treaty with North Korea in 2000, which they violated before the first boatload of trade rice and Bush wings had docked at Chongjin, whereupon Mrs Albright strode before the microphones to proclaim, “But we had an agreement”, to throngs of sniggers.
Nor was Mrs Albright’s reputation helped when she proclaimed absolute belief and trust in President Clinton’s avowal that he “never had sex with that woman…Ms Lewinsky”….just before he was impeached and ultimately convicted of lying under oath.
With all that in mind, watch today’s (Sunday 7 April, 2013) exchange with Bob Schieffer on CBS “Face the Nation”.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50144340n
It seems Madame Albright has grown intellectually since she left government, sounding almost convincing in her knowledge of North Korea today. She sounded like she’d actually read up on the subject, something she never did while in office. Maybe soon she can do a joint interview alongside John Bolton, who has always known his stuff.
Mrs Albright proves what we always suspected about many Democrat high- profile appointees. They don’t really start learning the job they were paid to do until after they’ve left it.
It’s the legacy thing.
