On The Plane

Straight Talk in Nairobi

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:33:39 -0500

By Mary Beth Sheridan NAIROBI, Aug. 6 -- At a town hall meeting on Thursday, an interviewer remarked on the "surprisingly frank" language that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had used in addressing Kenya's democratic failings. Clinton acknowledged her blunt style -- and went on to display it anew. Problems in the Democratic Republic of Congo are so acute because "much of the country is ungoverned," she said. She noted that Nigeria imports petroleum products, even though it's the fifth largest oil producer in the world. "That's bad governance!" she exclaimed. In Nairobi, she said, she had heard a common refrain: "If you have a problem in Kenya, why hire a lawyer if you can buy a judge?" The crowd at the University of Nairobi laughed and applauded her comments. For her part, Clinton said her language in Kenya was well-intentioned. "It's tough, but it's also lovingly presented," she

Clinton Shows Off Her New Kenyan Hairdo

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:56:32 -0500

By Mary Beth Sheridan NAIROBI -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton often injects a personal note into her speeches to create a bond with her audience -- mentioning her daughter, the artwork she's bought overseas, the people she's met in her many trips. On Wednesday, she brought up her hair. "I had a chance to meet two women here in Nairobi, because I had to get my hair done," she told hundreds of delegates to a U.S.-Africa trade conference. "My hairdos are the subject of PhD theses," she said with a wry grin. "I want everyone to know I got a good one in Nairobi." Then she got to her point: She had asked the women what it was like to live in Nairobi. "They said, it's a wonderful place, and a great place to raise children. I want to hear that everywhere, from every family, from every mother

With Clinton, Parsing Each Statement

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 07:00:00 -0500

By Glenn Kessler PHUKET, Thailand--Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's words made the reporters traveling with her sit up in their seats, newly attentive as the chief U.S. diplomat stopped dishing about her relationship with President Obama and her failed White House run. Suddenly, Clinton was talking about Iran's leaders, imagining how the United States and its Middle East allies might respond "once they have a nuclear weapon." "So we will still hold the door open, but we also have made it clear that we'll take actions, as I've said time and time again, crippling actions, working to upgrade the defense of our partners in the region," Clinton said during the interview with two chatty Thai television hosts Thursday morning. "We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment, that if the United States extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to

Clinton Hailed For Just Showing Up

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 05:46:28 -0500

By Glenn Kessler PHUKET, Thailand--In academic foreign-policy circles, there is the "realist" school and "moralist" school. Now add to that the Woody Allen school of foreign policy. As the filmmaker and comedian once said, "80 percent of success is showing up." Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is taking that sage philosophy to heart. Judging from the local media accounts of her trip to Thailand, she is getting enormous credit within Southeast Asia for simply attending the annual regional security forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Many of her predecessors, including Colin L. Powell in George W. Bush's first term, also dutifully attended the meeting. But not Condoleezza Rice, Bush's second-term secretary of state. Rice was never a fan of alphabet-soup talkfests like the ASEAN Regional Forum--which brings together the foreign ministers of more than 20 countries. She often found a reason to skip the annual two-day

At State, Slow to Articulate the Message

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:27:36 -0500

By Glenn Kessler BANGKOK--Diplomacy is often about the message. Six months into Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's tenure, the State Department sometimes still has trouble getting her message out. Reporters traveling with Clinton had been led to believe that the highlight of Clinton's last day in India--Monday--would be the signing of an "end-use monitoring" agreement permitting U.S. firms to compete for $10 billion in military aircraft purchases by India. But no U.S. official attempted to explain what that meant beforehand. In addition, up until a final news conference, there was virtually no information provided on a series of other agreements the two governments had been negotiating for the weeks leading up to Clinton's visit. So when Clinton and her Indian counterpart signed something else--a technology joint venture to spur research--confusion ensued among reporters. Did the "end-use" deal collapse? Was Clinton playing semantic games by saying the "end-use" deal had

At Top Delhi Restaurant, the 'Hillary Platter'

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 05:49:26 -0500

By Glenn Kessler NEW DELHI--The restaurant Bukhara here is widely regarded as the finest in India, if not one of the best in Asia. The atmospheric and casual spot in the ITC Maurya hotel is known for its mouth-watering kabobs, perrfectly cooked over spits in view of the patrons. It also happens to be a Clinton hangout. After then-President Clinton ate at Bukhara in 2000, the restaurant created a special Bill Clinton "presidential" platter in honor of his visit. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is also a Bukhara fan, and she made sure to have dinner there Sunday night with seven of her staff members. The chef prepared a special selection of eight dishes, plus naan bread and a desert of kulfi, a tasty Indian ice cream. Sure enough, the restaurant announced that the meal prepared for the Secretary would henceforth be on the menu as the "Hillary platter."

Behind the Scenes With Clinton in India

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:40:40 -0500

By Glenn Kessler MUMBAI, India--Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton began her three-day trip to India on Saturday with a burst of public diplomacy, but her meeting with a group of poor women left some residents here cold. Indian newspapers described how local police gave no advance notice before barring residents of an upscale neighborhood from returning to their homes during Clinton's 90-minute visit to a shop maintained by the Self-Employed Women Association (SEWA). Traffic also was blocked at a normally busy intersection, and parked cars were towed to make room for a 20-foot-wide red carpet. The Sunday Mumbai Mirror recounted how one man, Vishal Shah, had a bitter argument with police because he could not return home to his 6-year-old daughter, who he had left alone while he went out to do a brief errand. Shah was supposed to take his daughter to school but could not get any

Clinton Keeps Up an Active Pace Overseas

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:27:31 -0500

By Mary Beth Sheridan Secretaries of state tend to be a hardy lot, with long days of negotiations, meetings and receptions. But Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton may be in a category of her own. On her latest Middle East trip, the secretary, her staff and reporters boarded a 7:30 am plane from Kuwait to Iraq on Saturday. In a 12-hour visit, she met with US military brass, several Iraqi officials, U.N. envoys, war widows, U.S. diplomats -- and held a campaign-style town hall meeting. Clinton arrived back in Kuwait shortly before midnight -- just in time to preside at a lavish dinner for her staff and guests, plus the rather bedraggled reporters. No sign how she kept up the pace, although she did gulp a tiny cup of thick Arabic coffee as the evening ended, about six hours before she was due to head for her next stop,

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Clinton's 'Red Carpet Treatment' En Route to Iraq

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 08:33:09 -0500

By Mary Beth Sheridan Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton flew into Kuwait on Friday on Air Force 2, a top-of-the-line jet featuring leather seats, TV monitors and dinner served on china with silverware and cloth napkins. For her hour-long hop to Baghdad on Saturday, however, the frills were gone. Clinton, her State Department staff and a dozen journalists boarded an Air Force C-17 cargo jet, a hulking windowless gray workhorse, whose interior resembled a giant garage. Several rows of seats were plopped down in the middle of the cargo area. Passengers stuffed in ear plugs because of the roar of the engines. Once on board, staff and reporters grabbed sweaty body armor from a mound in the back of the aircraft, and practiced strapping on helmets. It looked like the kind of wartime scenario that Clinton evoked during her campaign when she described landing amid sniper fire in Bosnia--a

Clinton Reveals Small Contacts With Iran

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 05:32:53 -0500

By Glenn Kessler THE HAGUE--As the day wore on at the international conference on Afghanistan Tuesday, it was looking pretty grim for the reporters covering Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The high-minded speeches by foreign ministers on helping Afghanistan were not the reason many of the reporters had made the trip. We came mainly because this was the first opportunity for Clinton to cross paths with Iranian officials. The Obama administration has made outreach to Tehran a top priority, and anticipation ran high that something might happen. After all, when Clinton announced the plans for the conference a few weeks ago, the invite to Iran was the top news out of the announcement. But nothing seemed to be happening. Clinton and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Mehdi Akhundzadeh were seated at the same horse-shaped table, but the table was long and narrow. In fact, the table looked more like

The Waiting Game: Is the Third Time a Charm?

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:52:00 -0500

By Glenn Kessler THE HAGUE, March 30 -- What's going to happen when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and a senior diplomat from the Islamic Republic of Iran find themselves in the same room? Perhaps nothing. But anticipation is running high after Iran decided to accept an invitation to attend a conference on Afghanistan. It is the first opportunity for a high-level diplomatic encounter between Iran and the new administration. President Obama has indicated he is very interested in improving relations with Tehran. The Bush administration had little interest in warmer ties and even appeared to have an unspoken policy of regime change. But even so, both of Clinton's predecessors, Colin L. Powell and Condoleezza Rice, at one point found themselves in the same room with their Iranian counterparts during international conferences. Powell, in November 2004, was seated next to the then-Iranian foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, during dinner at

Hitting the Wrong Button

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 09:28:09 -0500

By Glenn Kessler ANKARA, Turkey, March 7--Diplomacy often is about shades of gray. And symbols, as well as substance, are all part of the game. So what happens when you throw a gimmick into the mix, a stunt more akin to a primary campaign? It's a bit daring and just might work. But careful attention to detail is important. The Clinton team learned that lesson the hard way when, before a crucial meeting in Geneva Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton presented her Russian counterpart with a mock "reset button"--with the wrong Russian word emblazoned on the device. Instead of "reset," it said "overcharge" or "overload," as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov quickly pointed out. The concept was clever--it was intended to symbolize the U.S. desire to "reset" the relationship with Russia--but the execution was sloppy. The idea of the gift was a bit of a last-minute thing, which

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Always Late, Ever the Crowd-Pleaser

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 07:06:57 -0500

By Glenn Kessler BRUSSELS, March 6--Nothing starts on time in Hillaryland. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is late to nearly every meeting and event on her schedule, and today's "town hall" with European Parliament interns and young professionals was no exception. The overflow crowd of hundreds of people was seated long before the official start time. And then they waited. And waited. Reporters traveling with her have learned that no matter how many of Clinton's staff gather before an event, Clinton will not be seen until her well-tailored aide, Huma Abedin, appears. Abedin, who is Clinton's deputy chief of staff, will walk smartly to the podium, carrying a blue folder containing a set of prepared talking points. Moments later, Clinton will walk into the room. For the town hall, Abedin, and Clinton, materialized about a half hour behind schedule. Once Clinton showed up, she had the audience eating out

For Clinton, Fewer Crowds in Mideast than Far East

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 06:25:24 -0500

By Glenn Kessler BRUSSELS, March 5--Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has tried to make public outreach an important part of her busy diplomatic schedule, hoping to get outside the grand halls and meeting rooms of foreign governments and actually talk to ordinary people. But on this Mideast trip, her outreach campaign has not been nearly as successful as her boffo Asian tour last month. There, the former first lady and New York senator spoke to crowds huge (more than 2,000 students at a women's university in Seoul) and small (an intimate gathering of women activists in China.) Clinton's overseas appeal was readily apparent, and she garnered impressive news coverage. Not so on this trip. In Israel, Clinton met with a handful of women entrepreneurs and representatives of a nongovernmental organization, but it was an awkward event and Clinton was clearly tired. And since the event was unconnected to the

Israeli Press Gets Different View of Clinton's Talks

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 09:17:26 -0500

By Glenn Kessler RAMALLAH, West Bank, March 4--Throughout Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's journey in the Middle East, she and her media team appeared very concerned not to be seen putting pressure on the Israeli government. At news conferences, she deferred questions, often saying she had to wait until there was a new government formed before speaking about specific policies. And her aides generally refused to comment about what she said in the meetings, despite constant queries from reporters traveling with her. In contrast, the Israeli press has carried a candid assessments of Clinton's meetings here. For example, late Tuesday night, instead of a briefing from a real person, reporters were e-mailed "background information," which could be attributed to a "U.S. official." The missive set a new standard for useless information. The e-mail only addressed her meetings with Israeli President Shimon Peres and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and

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