American Morning
Ever wonder if Hillary were in the White House?
Ever wonder what it would be like if Hillary Clinton had won the Presidency? Would the country be any better off?
Dana Milbank, political columnist for The Washington Post, raises these questions in his latest column.
This morning, he tells AM’s John Roberts how Hillary Clinton might have fared as President, especially surrounding the health care debate. And, he weighs in on all the chatter about Hillary on the 2012 ticket for Vice President.
Read the full column here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/05/AR2010110505214.html
Haass: U.S. should draw down in Afghanistan
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on July 19, 2010 in Islamabad, Pakistan. (Getty Images)
(CNN) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Pakistan right now. She's just unveiled $7.5 billion in development aid aimed at winning some hearts and minds. That's part of the White House's strategy for turning things around across the border in Afghanistan where Clinton's headed next.
One of the most respected voices among US foreign policy experts says the Obama Administration’s Afghan policy is not working.
Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations and a veteran of several US administrations, writes in the latest edition of Newsweek: “Continued or increased U.S. involvement in Afghanistan isn’t likely to yield lasting improvements that would be commensurate in any way with the investment of American blood and treasure. It is time to scale down our ambitions there and both reduce and redirect what we do.”
Speaking on CNN’s American Morning Monday, Haass said Afghanistan was now “a sponge for American resources and it is a distraction. We out to be thinking militarily about what we might have to do in North Korea or Iran where we really do have vital national interests.” Watch 
Clinton makes women's rights a priority at State Dept.
(CNN) – During the 2008 presidential election campaign, then-Senator Hillary Clinton almost shattered the nation's ultimate glass ceiling. After her defeat, she thanked her supporters for putting 18 million cracks into that ceiling.
Now, as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton is bringing new power and prestige to her fight for women's rights. Our Jill Dougherty reports on Sec. Clinton's push for women's rights at the State Department.
Clinton talks about career, favorite TV show, and her 'crush'
Hillary Clinton is looking presidential to many Americans these days. A new CNN poll puts her well ahead of Vice President Biden and Sarah Palin as the “most qualified” to be president.
Now we’re getting to see a side of her that didn’t come out on the campaign trail – her favorite television show, and a certain “crush.”
Vogue contributing editor Jonathan Van Meter traveled to Africa to get a rare look at the secretary of state. His feature is in December's issue of the magazine. Van Meter joined John Roberts on CNN’s “American Morning” Wednesday. Below is an edited transcript of the interview.
John Roberts: You spent about three weeks with her. A couple weeks in Africa, and a week at the U.N. General Assembly. Sat down with her a couple times. What most surprised you about her?
Jonathan Van Meter: I think what most surprised me was that she was more accessible and more pleasant and friendly and easy to talk to than I expected. As a journalist I've heard so many stories about how difficult she is to interview – maybe she has relaxed now that she's no longer in electoral politics. I found her sort of unguarded at moments and just pleasant. Cheerful. She was always in a good mood.
Roberts: So the very scripted person we saw on the campaign trail loosens up a little bit?
Van Meter: Yeah. I got to see her one morning in Africa, she had gone for a swim in the ocean. Her hair was wet. She came to meet me for breakfast for an interview. She just looked like a woman that had gone for a swim in the ocean. She was just incredibly relaxed and pleasant.
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.“
Is Secretary Clinton being back-benched?
By CNN's Jill Dougherty
WASHINGTON (CNN) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivers a major foreign policy speech and some Washington political observers ask: "Is she trying to get back in the spotlight?"
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/07/15/art.clinton.getty.jpg caption="Supporters of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insist she is not being sidelined."]
Since she slipped and broke her elbow last month, the secretary has had to cancel an international trip, and some inside-the-Beltway types are reading the tea leaves. Is it another step in the process of keeping Secretary Clinton from the real foreign policy decision-making in the Obama administration?
"The Daily Beast's" Tina Brown writes: "Left behind on major presidential trips, overruled in choosing her own staff - Hillary Clinton is the invisible woman at State."
"It's time for Barack Obama to let Hillary Clinton take off her burqa," she said.
The Washington Post's Jim Hoagland said it's President Obama's inner circle, advisers such as chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and senior adviser David Axelrod, who are controlling the president's foreign policy message. He predicts "tensions will emerge instead between the close-in advisers and the Cabinet secretaries who have been chosen to sell and implement policies more than to decide them."
Clinton aides say charges that the secretary is being "back-benched" are "wholly false."
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