Froma Harrop: Hillary just plain overdid it - Sat, 12 Jan 2013 PST
January 12, 2013 in Opinion
Froma Harrop
The football helmet that State Department staffers presented Hillary Clinton upon her return to the office was cute, but only sort of. Same went for the Clinton football jersey bearing the number 112. Thats how many countries shes visited since becoming secretary ofstate.
Clinton had been away sick for a month. She had suffered a stomach virus, which dehydrated her, which made her woozy, which led to a fall, which caused a concussion, which landed her in a hospital with a blood clot in herhead.
No secretary of state had gone to that many countries. In her nearly 1,500 days as Americas top diplomat, Clinton traveled on 401 of them. During one famous 48-hour period, she met with Palestinian officials in Abu Dhabi, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and, after doing an all-nighter in Morocco, a group of Arableaders.
Of course, she got sick. Who wouldnt? Lots of otherwise healthy Americans come down with a nasty bug after just one trans-Atlantic flight to London. Add to that constant time-zone changes, rich banquets, minimal exercise, lack of sleep and stress-filled meetings. Clinton wasnt there to stroll aroundmuseums.
Whats not cute about all this is the underlying shall we say? irresponsibility of so overstuffing the agenda. This blows against Clintons reputation as the ultimate Responsible One. Its thus disturbing that many of her admirers portrayed the resulting sickness as a tribute to her workethic.
Melanne Verveer, a longtime Clinton aide now at the State Department, meant only praise when she said of the secretary of state: So many people who know her have urged me to tell her not to work so hard. Well, thats not! easy to do when youre Hillary Clinton. She doesnt spareherself.
Yes, she works hard, but doesnt working smart mean pacing oneself so that you dont fall apart in the last mile of the marathon? People do get ill through no fault of their own, but Clinton was asking forit.
All that racing around Mideast capitals sometimes took on the air of a personal endurance test rather than effective management of foreign policy. (Youll note that the Arab-Israeli conflict remainsunresolved.)
Make no mistake: Clinton has been a fine secretary of state. Few would argue otherwise. Still, were kind of lucky there wasnt a major new international crisis inDecember.
It pains me to bring up the woman angle here, but you wonder whether a man would have overscheduled to the point of collapse. (Only one secretary of state exceeded Clinton in the number of miles traveled: Condoleezza Rice.) President Obama tries to make time for exercise and rest, as did President George W. Bush before him. They understand the importance of maintaining theirhealth.
Its no small irony that Clintons recent illness has led some Democrats eager for a strong female presidential candidate in 2016 to start looking beyond Hillary. It may be true that Clinton says shes not interested in running again, but her medical scare is making some supporters think she meansit.
The lets-find-a-woman people are misguided. I dont believe in backing candidates on the basis of gender (or race, religion, height or eye color). Hillary Clinton became one of our eras great political figures for otherreasons.
While she will never embody the cool and outward serenity of Barack Obama, Clinton didnt have to become the spinning top that put her in a sickbed. Even there, she noted not without pride her difficulty in becoming a compliant patient. If Clinton does run for president, she must show more dedication to self-preservation. Martyrs dont necessarily make greatmanagers.
Froma Harrop is a columnist for CreatorsSyndicate.