American Morning
Critics: Pres. Clinton is overshadowing his wife
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/06/journos.return.gi.art.jpg caption="Journalists Laura Ling speaks in front of Euna Lee, former Vice President Al Gore and former President Bill Clinton on August 5, 2009 in Burbank, California after being released by North Korean authorities."]
Laura Ling choked up with emotion when she described the moment she realized she would be freed from captivity in North Korea. “We were taken to a location, and when we walked in through the doors, we saw standing before us President Bill Clinton.”
He was a rescuing angel, who brought the two American journalists home safely. Some are even saying Mr. Clinton's visit may also pave the way to a nuclear-free North Korea. But it wasn’t long before “The Hillary Question” came up.
“Where is Hillary?” asked Rush Limbaugh on his radio show. “Is North Korea too important to send a girl?” Although Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Africa on a diplomacy tour, some say President Clinton’s mission trumps hers.
“Just as Hillary muscled her way back into the spotlight...she was blown off the radar screen again by an even more powerful envoy: the one she lives with,” wrote Maureen Dowd in the New York Times. This comes after questions just last month, that President Obama was overshadowing Secretary Clinton by meeting with world leaders himself, and by sending Vice President Joe Biden to Iraq.
Clinton supporters argue Hillary is in no way being overshadowed. “I don’t think Bill Clinton would overshadow Secretary Clinton,” says Clinton Defense Secretary William Cohen. “In fact if that were to be the case, I'm sure he would not have done it." Cohen says Mr. Clinton not only worked closely with President Obama to free the journalists, but he worked with his wife, the Secretary of State, too.
And besides, many analysts say, this was the kind of mission more suited to former Presidents. “The North Koreans wanted a high-level envoy and it was clear that it couldn't be somebody currently in government,” says Larry Sabato, who teaches political science at the University of Virginia. “So you know there were only several people imaginable; Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Bill Richardson, and the North Koreans got the top banana, which is what they wanted.“
Bill Clinton: International man of history
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/06/clinton.kimjongil.gi.art.jpg caption="This file photo taken on August 4, 2009 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il (R) posing with former US president Bill Clinton (L) in Pyongyang."]
Politico.com
A controversy-prone ex-president rides to the rescue to defuse a crisis provoked by an erratic dictatorship on the Korean Peninsula. Most people breathe a sigh of relief, but there are skeptics who wonder if the breakthrough was won through appeasement.
Not only has Bill Clinton seen this movie before, he’s starred in it — though in a different role than the one he’s playing this week with his burst of globe-trotting diplomacy in North Korea.
The 42nd president’s success in forging a behind-the-scenes deal for the release of two American journalists in exchange for Clinton’s surprise appearance in Pyongyang may signal a new chapter in one of the United States’s most vexing and dangerous relationships. Or it may turn out to be another false start with an isolated and paranoid regime.
In either event, however, this week marks a curious full circle in the life of Bill Clinton, who until this week was an elder statesman
who seemed without a clear identity or useful role in Barack Obama’s presidency. A Clinton adviser said the former president is ready and eager for more Obama assignments.
History, it turns out, is full of inside jokes.
Commentary: Bill Clinton shows that diplomacy works
Editor's note: Joseph Cirincione is president of Ploughshares Fund, a nonprofit organization that makes grants to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and the author of "Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons." He formerly was a senior vice president at the Center for American Progress, a think tank that describes itself as "progressive," and was on the staff of the House Armed Services Committee.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/05/art.joseph.cirincione.jpg caption="Joseph Cirincione says Clinton's trip was the culmination of diplomacy his adminstration began 15 years ago."]
Special to CNN
(CNN) - President Clinton did more than free two unjustly jailed journalists. He jump-started the successful diplomacy he had begun 15 years earlier.
In October 2000, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Pyongyang. During Bill Clinton's presidency, the administration had locked down North Korea's plutonium production program, which had created enough deadly material for two bombs during the Reagan years. They had stopped all missile tests. They were a few details away from concluding a deal to end these programs completely.
But Clinton ran out of time. Enmeshed in Middle East peace talks, Clinton could not get assurances that a presidential visit to North Korea would seal the deal. He passed off the almost completed process to the incoming George W. Bush administration.
On March 6, 2001, new Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "We do plan to engage with North Korea to pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off." But Bush had different ideas. On March 7, Bush kneecapped Powell.
Freed journalist: 'We are so happy to be home'
BURBANK, California (CNN) - Laura Ling on Wednesday expressed the shock she and Euna Lee felt when former President Clinton showed up in Pyongyang, North Korea, to help secure the two journalists' release.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/05/art.family.afp.gi.jpg caption="Euna Lee, left, and Laura Ling go to hug their families Wednesday after arriving in California from North Korea."]
"We feared at any moment that we could be sent to a hard labor camp and then suddenly we were told we were going to a meeting," a tearful and emotional Ling said at a news conference in California shortly after arriving by plane with Lee and Clinton.
She spoke minutes after the two women were reunited with their families at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank outside Los Angeles. They had been detained in North Korea since March.
North Korea pardoned Ling, 32, and Lee, 36, after Clinton's brief trip Tuesday to Pyongyang.
"We were taken to a location, and when we walked through the doors, we saw standing before us President Bill Clinton," Ling said with Lee standing beside her.
"We were shocked, but we knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare of our lives was finally coming to an end."
She expressed her and Lee's "deepest gratitude" to Clinton and his "wonderful, amazing" team.
The real cost of obesity?
With all the talk these days about health care reform – a trillion dollars to insure every American – we wondered, could the total cost be lowered if we as a nation spent a little time and energy on prevention?
Take obesity: medical spending on obesity-related conditions has skyrocketed to 147 billion dollars a year. That's nearly 10 percent of all medical spending in the United States. And that's just the beginning.
Elkhart mayor: Thank you President Obama
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/05/moore.mayor.art.cnn.jpg caption="Elkhart, Indiana Mayor Dick Moore is optimistic for economic recovery in his town where unemployment is near 17%."]
The White House today is pushing President Obama's plans to fix the economy. The president is going back to a place that was devastated by the recession: Elkhart, Indiana. Unemployment there is nearly 17%. That is up ten points since last year.
So do people there have any hope that an economic recovery is on the way? Elkhart’s mayor, Dick Moore, spoke to John Roberts on CNN’s “American Morning” Wednesday.
John Roberts: We should point out that … Elkhart, Indiana, is famous as the RV capital of America. Let’s talk about what’s been happening there. Unemployment was up around 18%, a little more than 18% for a while earlier this year. It's down a little bit to about 16.8%. Is this any kind of effect of the stimulus that the president had passed earlier this year? What's the situation there now in Elkhart?
Dick Moore: Well I certainly think so. I remember the comment that doing nothing is absolutely not an option. And I do believe something has to be done. And I think we're experiencing the effects of what has been done at this time. Here in Elkhart we're seeing some spending has increased. The economic indicators are up. And the city actually – we went to beyond 20% in unemployment. Meaning one out of every five of us was out of a job. We bettered that some by a couple of percents now. Something is happening here.
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