By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now convinced that her boss and one time rival President Barack Obama has plenty of international savvy and toughness and is doing an incredible job.
“Those were appropriate issues to raise in the campaign,” said Clinton who had questioned Barack Obama’s international savvy and toughness while campaigning against him last year.
“I’m here to say, as somebody who’s spent an enormous amount of time and effort running against him, I think his performance in office has been incredible,” she said Sunday on the NBC programme “Meet the Press”.
Asked specifically about her campaign criticisms, Clinton said, “I don’t feel them at all” anymore. She also said she has “moved on” from her loss to Obama in a hard-fought Democratic primary contest.
Clinton once again sought to dispel speculation she has a rocky relationship with Obama insisting they have “a great relationship.”
“We have an incredibly candid and open exchange,” Clinton said. “I see him usually several times a week, at least once one-on-one. And I’m ready to offer my advice.” But “At the end of the day, it is the president who has to set and articulate policy.”
“I’m privileged to be in a position where I am the chief adviser, I’m the chief diplomat, I’m the chief executor of the policy that the president pursues, but I know very well that a team that works together is going to do a better job for America.”
Clinton stressed she understood “that the election is over” and she has no designs on the White House.
To push home the point that her ties with Obama were on an even keel, Clinton revealed she had a portrait in her State Department office of William Henry Seward, who served as president Abraham Lincoln’s wartime secretary of state. Seward had been seen by many as the top contender for their party’s nomination in 1860, but joined Lincoln’s cabinet after the defeat, in a scenario that helped create the team-of-rivals concept in American politics.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])