[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/07/14/brown.tina.art.jpg caption="Tina Brown, editor-in-chief of TheDailyBeast.com calls Hillary Clinton 'Obama's other wife.'"]

When President Obama picked Hillary Clinton to be secretary of state, many called it a bold move that had star power written all over it. There are some who are now questioning if that star power is being kept under wraps.

Tina Brown is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of TheDailyBeast.com. She writes, “It's time for Barack Obama to let Hillary Clinton take off her burqa.” Brown joined Kiran Chetry on CNN’s “American Morning” Tuesday.

Kiran Chetry: "Take off her burqa"? What do you mean by that?

Tina Brown: I mean I'd like to see a little more of Hillary being allowed to be her own person in the State Department. Clearly she's obviously having to represent the administration and she's doing it. She's showing, though, immense discipline, I have to say, about knocking herself back from the spotlight.

She didn't even appear on a talk show until June because the president's message team control very, very carefully who gets the limelight. And it's all really about Obama getting the limelight. So Hillary didn’t. Tomorrow she has her first big foreign policy address, which is actually welcome. Because I think it's time we saw more of her.

Chetry: You call it the ultimate checkmate in terms of the president putting her in that position and the effect it had on former President Bill Clinton. Explain that.

Brown: It turns out the disappointment, which people didn't quite get when it first happened, was a brilliant checkmate of the Clintons. Because in this position it's really important that the secretary of state does not let any daylight between herself and the president as we saw when Colin Powell really wasn't seen to be part of the Bush team. It really hurt him as secretary of state.

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[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/07/14/obama.putin.getty.art.jpg caption="President Barack Obama (L) and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (2R) converse while having traditional Russian tea on a terrace at Putin's residence outside Moscow on July 7, 2009."]

By Tina Brown
The Daily Beast

Left behind on major presidential trips, overruled in choosing her own staff—Hillary Clinton is the invisible woman at State. But Obama's brilliant foreign-policy spouse may not stay silent forever.

It’s time for Barack Obama to let Hillary Clinton take off her burqa.

Consider the president’s Moscow trip a week ago. In a cozy scene at Vladimir Putin’s dacha, the boys enjoyed traditional Russian tea and breakfast on a terrace. Sitting on Putin’s right was the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. Where was Lavrov’s counterpart? She was back home, left there with a broken elbow to receive a visit from the ousted Honduran president, José Manuel Zelaya.

It becomes clearer by the day how cleverly Obama checkmated both Clintons by putting Hillary in the topmost Cabinet job.

Same thing last month, when the president stopped off to see King Abdullah en route to his oratorical home run in Cairo: no Hillary. Nor was there any sign of Middle East envoy George Mitchell or anyone else from the State Department on the Saudi leg of the trip, even though its main mission was to recruit Abdullah into a peace-making partnership with Israel. The king told Obama no, by the way, so it’s fair to ask whether the president could have used a bit more Foggy Bottom prep work. Jim Hoagland noted in Sunday’s Washington Post that the White House’s leak of Obama’s decision to send an ambassador to Syria took Clinton’s State Department by surprise and trumped State’s efforts to squeeze another concession or two out of Damascus first.

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New Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opens up about her life on latest foreign trip.

In her trip through the Middle East and Europe last week, Hillary Rodham Clinton was warmly received in most places by audiences who are fascinated by the life of the former first lady – and she is trying to reach out to ordinary people through public diplomacy efforts.

Appearing on a popular Turkish television chat show, Hadi Gel Bizimle (Come and Join Us), Clinton tackled a few diplomatic questions but the main focus was on her personal life, such as when she "last" fell in love.

"It was so long ago, with my husband," she told the studio audience, adding that she first met former President Bill Clinton in the spring of 1971 when they were at law school.

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