Hillary’s Dumb Diplomacy at Georgetown

Earlier today, Hillary Clinton gave a speech at Georgetown University titled “Smart Power: Security Through Inclusive Leadership.” The hall was at least half empty, as noted on Twitter:

clintonbalcony

Which may not mean anything. Georgetown described an “audience of diplomats and other officials from all over the world,” so I am not sure whether the public was even invited. What does deserve ridicule, however, is the content of Hillary’s remarks, which remind us how vapid her thinking is:

This is what we call Smart Power, using every possible tool…leaving no one on the sidelines, showing respect even for one’s enemies, trying to understand, and insofar as is psychologically possible, empathize with their perspective and point of view, helping to define the problems [and] determine a solution, that is what we believe in the 21st century will change the prospect for peace.

So that’s what they call Smart Power? No wonder it didn’t work: diplomacy as envisioned by a naive but well-intentioned elementary school teacher.

One of the problems with the liberals’ approach to national security is that wherever they look, they see opportunities for affirmative action. If it isn’t women in combat, it’s women in the foreign ministry:

But she also told the audience that the world still has a long way to go in terms women’s participation.

Of the hundreds of peace treaties signed since the early 1990s, between or within nations, she said fewer than 10 percent had any female negotiators and fewer than 3 percent had women as signatories.

“Is it any wonder that many of these agreements fail between [sic] a few years?” Clinton asked.

It’s enough to give non sequiturs a bad name! But beyond the easy ridicule, there is a serious point: liberalism of the Clinton variety is utterly out of ammo. Hillary has no ideas of any intellectual or strategic significance. All she can do is utter platitudes and pander to 1970s-style feminism. And for this she gets $300,000 a pop?

The Obama administration’s foreign policies have failed pretty much across the board, but if Hillary has any idea why, she isn’t telling.

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