Thursday, April 24, 2008

But she's visited more foreign countries than anyone-

Remember in 2000 when a reporter asked Governor George Bush the names of various foreign heads of government and Dubya couldn't identify them? The she-Clinton seems to be increasingly in the same league, says Ben Smith:

'A flap in New Zealand

'A reader points to a flap underway in New Zealand, in which Hillary -- asked by Newsweek, for a good joke -- told a fairly insulting one about Prime Minister Helen Clark, referring to her (inaccurately) as the "former" prime minister.

'As the blogger Rachel Morris points out, the New Zealand press is up in arms, but along with creating some friction with a charter member of the Coalition of the Willing, the incident points to a broader trend: Clinton, despite her image as a steady hand on foreign policy, leads the field on actual foreign policy blunders this cycle.

'Along with the New Zealand flap, she's twice created real tension with key heads of state: Putin, who took it badly when she said he "doesn't have a soul"; and Musharraf, whose government reacted furiously when she suggested he might have had Benazir Bhutto killed.

'She also made a fairly basic error on the structure of the Pakistani government, and more recently (if, it seems, deliberately) rattled the foreign policy establishment by openly threatening nuclear retaliation against Iran.

'These stories haven't really been told as a narrative, because they don't fit the existing narrative. But they are, together, a fairly striking batch.

'ALSO: Gordon Brown.

'ALSO: Medveduh-whatever.'

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