Clinton: I'm Secretary of State, Not Bill

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Temper Flared Monday When Asked for Husband's Opinion on Finance

(CBS/AP)  Updated 5:09 p.m. ET

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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's temper flared on Monday when she thought a Congolese university student asked for her husband's thinking on an international matter.

"My husband is not secretary of state. I am," an obviously annoyed Clinton replied sharply.

A week after former President Bill Clinton traveled to North Korea to secure the release of two detained American journalists and stole the limelight from the start of his wife's first trip to Africa, Clinton was clearly nettled by the question at a town hall forum in Kinshasa.

"You want me to tell you what my husband thinks?" she replied incredulously when a translator told her that a male student had asked what the former president thought of World Bank concerns about a multibillion-dollar Chinese loan offer to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband," she said.

The question was left unanswered as the moderator of the event quickly moved on.

It appears, however, that the translator made a mistake in relaying the question to Clinton.

According to a pool report, the person who asked the question later explained to the secretary of state that he wanted to know what President Obama thought about the deal, not what Mr. Clinton thought.

Sidelined for weeks after she was injured during a fall this spring, Clinton returned to a flurry of speculation that she had been shoved to the side as a diplomatic force inside the administration, overshadowed by globe-trotting President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and a bevy of heavyweight special envoys assigned to the world's critical hotspots.

Clinton launched into a series of high-profile speeches and television appearances. But just as she landed in Africa, her ambitious visit ran into stiff competition from her husband's secret mission to North Korea, which drew heavy coverage for his role in freeing the two journalists and talking with the regime's longtime leader, Kim Jong Il.

It was not immediately clear why Clinton reacted with such umbrage, and she quickly recovered her cool and moved on to other subjects Monday. Just before the question that set off her anger, another student had asked if the U.S. and the West felt a need to apologize to the people of Congo for colonialism and postcolonial interference.

"I cannot excuse the past and I will not try," she said. "We can either think about the past and be imprisoned by it or we can decide we're going to have a better future and work to make it."

Clinton is in the middle of a marathon 11-day tour of Africa and has held to a grueling schedule of official meetings and private events that have kept her busy from sunrise to well after sunset.

She returned to the public eye in mid-July with what aides billed as a major foreign policy address at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. Since then, she has traveled to India and Thailand and now to seven nations in Africa.

Hours after she left Washington for Africa last Monday, news broke that Bill Clinton had gone on the humanitarian mission to North Korea to win the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two television journalists who had been arrested there and sentenced to 12 years at hard labor.

Mrs. Clinton arrived in Kenya to find herself peppered with questions about his role in the secret mission to North Korea.

[parisdakar]

If you're the Secretary of State, then act like it.

[luvny-2009]

You go girl!!

[sam-kiley]

coucou
madame clinton dit vrai en plus.."elle est" la secrétaire d'état au revoir

[Newster1]

by novamba August 10, 2009 3:51 PM EDT
This is the person that dictates US diplomacy and she cant handle a University student?"

It wasnt a student it was a stupid translator.

[boatdocster]

The Pants Suit of hot air has spoken.

CNN Poll - who is a better diplomat?

Hillbuster - 22%
Bill - 78%

Hillbuster needs some time on the pond and she needs to do something; otherwise she will be known as another Condi Rice. Whole lot of talk, ZERO action.

[mary-miami]

Secretary Clinton is right. Not only was the question a total lack of respect, it shows how backward that country is concerning women's rights. By answering the way she did, she will bring awareness there to the need for respect towards women and their rights as human beings.

[Willynailr]

by boatdocster August 12, 2009 11:46 AM EDT
They think that Sarah Palin has a great future in politics!

Yep, she will be the GOP poster child of stupidity. Palin is done and she is too dim to see it. Every time she opens her mouth they throw another shovel of dirt on the coffin - hers.


I would be willing to bet Palin at leasts knows how many states there are. I wonder if Hussein ever got to those other three states.

[yeffiong]

Childish, very childish to say Hillary Clinton should not have an outburst. As an African, i can easily feel the tension in that room from both Parties.
She did actually the right thing, wheather the questioner was a university student or not he was at least an adult.
You give Africans an inch they will take a mile.

HIlary read the situation very well and reacted Appropraitely.

[JamesB621]

It seems to me that there are a great many of you who didn't read the whole story. The question was mistranslated, in reality the student wasn't asking Bill Clinton's opinion on anything. He was asking President Obama's opinion of the deal. I understand how she must be feeling after being sidelined due to an injury, and being upstaged by Obama and her husband in such a short span of time, but she could have handled the situation more diplomatically than that.

[Questionews]

What the heck!!!

That post was a reply!! And somehow it repeated itself as an original post!!

Call an IT manager!!

[erasmus111]

You should check the other pages, you could find your comments there too. Mine are repeated on pages one and two, I think.

[erasmus111]

THIS WEBSITE SUCKS!

[erasmus111]

by ladypirate2 August 11, 2009 3:37 PM EDT
I DID NOT write the comment above! gangesdak did just to make me look bad!


You don't need him to make you look bad. :)

[erasmus111]

by ladypirate2 August 11, 2009 1:10 AM EDT
Granted, she's a little lacking in experience but if she stays in politics she'll gain the experience! I also think she's every bit as intelligent as Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi! She just lacks their experience.


She doesn't even come close to Hillary! She is lacking more than experience, she's lacking a brain. And if you can't tell that by some of the things she has said, then you are lacking a brain also.

[ladypirate2]

You've never really listened to her! You don't look beyond the smile and the winks and really listen to what she's saying! I admit that she tends to word some of her statements in ways that may not make sense on the surface but when you think about it and decipher what she's saying you find that she really does make sense and that she does have a brain! She just words her statements in ways that are different than how most people speak! I also admit that she sometimes does things that might be different than what most people would do, like quitting her job as governor.

Sarah Palin is her own woman and she IS unique and you do have to decipher what she says! I guess being from southern ancestry and being a Pentecostal and growing up in a small town in the Bible belt gave me an ability to understand Sarah Palin and others like her and myself. A person from a large city or from somewhere not in the south or in the Bible belt who doesn't have a Christian background may not have that ability. You do have to be able to relate to her at least somewhat to be able to understand her.

[ladypirate2]

Have you read the latest on Sarah? A judge in Alaska cleared her of another one of those silly frivolous lawsuits that have been filed against her. It was the one about the use of her private email address to conduct state business. Superior Court Judge Jack W. Smith said that there is no provision in Alaska state law that prohibits the use of private email accounts when conducting state business. Not one, NOT ONE, of those silly lawsuits have stuck! So far every one of them has been thrown out! In "Troopergate" what she was accused of doing was found to be unethical but not unlawful. As far as I know she has not even had to pay a fine for any of them!

[nword-bk-power]

This is something that President Obama needs to stop. Why send white trash as hillbilly clinton to the Mother Land and have her to treat the Great African People as Second Class! this is not a Slave Buying Event!

[erasmus111]

by NEWCO123 August 11, 2009 8:21 AM EDT
You do know that the boy was asking what President Obama's plan was, not Bills. It was misinterpreted by the translator and came out wrong.


It doesn't matter whether it came out wrong or not. At the time, that was the question and she answered it appropriately. That person owes her an apology for not getting it right.

BTW, you didn't answer my question. Are you a girl? : )

[naj1953]

I don't feel Hillary has to answer for Bill...But maybe that is all she had to say...I can't answer for Bill...

[jankebenzone]

This incident reminded me of a spoiled child raising a fuss at not getting her way and was an embarrassment to the U.S. It futher proves that Hillary conducts herself in a very unprofessional manner and should not be involved in politics. It's also very clear that world leaders don't take her very seriously anyway, women rarely are. Her globe trotting is a complete waste of time and money.

[O_ReallyFactor]

WOW! A female Jabba the Hut in a pant suit. And here are typical liberal responses: blame it one someone else. The poor student who barely spoke English, the interpreter, the media - why not Bush or Limbaugh? But not Billary - oh no. Geez, you lib are pathetic.

[credibility2]

The media is making more of this than is necessary, but then it's Hillary and how short memories are of how the media and even those in her own party repeatedly trashed her in favor of Obama. Then came Palin; also trashed by the media and those bellying up to Obama. Hillary has had to constantly live in the shadow of Bill and his recent fete in North Korea, getting back to two wayward immature female journalists, plus the fact that in the Congo, which is patriarchal, women are dismissed, regardless of what they do or say. The fact that the translator was a student isn't relevant. If a person is going to represent themselves to the world, especially in this context, as a translator, they had better know how to properly translate. It's even more baffling considering that the native-language of the translator was Congolese. Now there's back peddling on the what the translator really meant to ask. Either way, Hillary had every right to be ticked off. Good for her. Maybe now, translators will make certain what they're asking or saying to an official of the U.S., especially a woman.

[tlwalker4]

Hee, hee, hee.

Hilary is getting a bit testy here, isn't she?

Maybe Hillary is just tired. Maybe the poor dear is simply getting too old for so much travel.