Some days, you really have to feel for Hillary Clinton. And this could be one of those days.

Secretary of State Clinton’s bad day started Monday in Kinshasa, in the middle of a grueling African trip, when a translator goofed and made it sound as if a questioner wanted to know what Clinton’s husband Bill thought of a particular issue. While on this tour, she’d already had to comment on the former president’s humanitarian mission to free to U.S. journalists from North Korea, and basically, she’d had about enough.

Read a just-the-facts Reuters story on what happened here and watch the video below.

But because the Clintons are the Clintons, with a long history in the public eye, that was hardly the end of it. Tuesday morning television — CNN, ABC, NBC, others — replayed the video of Hillary Clinton snapping at the student questioner: “You want me to tell you what my husband thinks? If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion, I am not going to be channeling my husband.” It was a five-star video on YouTube.

Back at the State Department, Assistant Secretary P.J. Crowley acknowledged that the question, however poorly it was translated — the questioner wanted to know what President Barack Obama thought, not former President Clinton — struck a nerve. Crowley told CNN that her reaction had to be taken in the context of her African trip, where she has worked to draw attention to the plight of women who are victims of rape as a weapon of war in Congo.

“If Africa, if Congo is going to advance, women have to play a more significant role. She was in the setting of a town hall, and the questioner was interested in what two men thought, not the secretary of state,” Crowley said.

No question about it, Hillary Clinton is a polarizing figure. But whatever you think, being secretary of state is challenging enough, especially on an exhausting trip to a continent with critical diplomatic issues, without being second-guessed about how she feels when asked questions involving her high-profile husband or the man she ran against who is now president.

Or is she fair game, no matter what the circumstances?

In domestic U.S. politics, Obama heads for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for a town hall meeting on health care. Fireworks possible.

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Joe Bavier (Hillary Clinton in Kinshasa, August 10, 2009)

WASHINGTON - Republican Senator John McCain says North Korea was attempting to use former President Bill Clinton’s visit for propaganda purposes and enhance the prestige of Pyongyang.

In an interview with Reuters, McCain said the Obama administration should resist any temptation to engage in direct talks with the North Koreans but instead should push North Korea to rejoin stalled six-party negotiations over its nuclear program.

The six-party talks include the United States and North and South Korea, China, Russia and Japan.

McCain, the Republican candidate in last year’s presidential election won by Barack Obama, said he believes all Americans appreciate Clinton’s role in securing the release of two American journalists and sparing them from “the worst gulag in the world, with conditions that would make Stalin blush.”

“The question is, will this signal a change in North Korean behavior?” McCain said, recalling that a visit by former President Jimmy Carter to North Korean in 1994 led to hopes for a change but did not produce lasting progress.

In announcing the release of the two women, the North Korean news agency had said Clinton offered an apology for their behavior, a claim denied by the Obama White House. “I think it’s very clear that the North Koreans, in their statement when they talked about ‘profound apologies’ etcetera, tried to use this to enhance their prestige and use it for propaganda purposes, but that should surprise no one,” he said.

North Korea’s insistence that Clinton and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il discussed pending U.S.-North Korean issues and reached a consensus of views on seeking a negotiated settlement of them was seen by some analysts as a signal that North Korea was seeking direct talks with the United States.

Since taking office in January, the Obama administration so far has repeated the same demands long held by the United States, that North Korea needs to give up its nuclear weapons and stop provocative behavior.

McCain, long a vocal critic of North Korea, said direct talks should be resisted. “Let’s not change our policy of many administrations, of our goal of eliminating North Korea’s nuclear weapons, engage in six-party talks and continue our advocacy for human rights,” he said.

Photo credits: Euna Lee reunited with family - REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

Clinton speaks with film producer Stephen Bing - REUTERS/Danny Moloshok

It turns out that it was North Korea which had suggested that former President Bill Clinton would be the best person to come and negotiate the release of two journalists who had been sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in the Stalinist state.
 
The U.S. government — particularly Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — had been working for months on trying to free the two journalists. The secretary of state reportedly proposed sending various people to Pyongyang, including Clinton’s former vice president Al Gore, to lobby for the women’s release.
 
But North Korea rejected Gore and other possible envoys like Senator John Kerry, Governor Bill Richardson and former ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg. Pyongyang wanted President Clinton and passed that word along through the two detained journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were making occasional phone calls to their families.
 
“In mid-July during one such phone call, Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee shared what the North Koreans had told them — that they would be willing to grant them amnesty and release the two Americans if an envoy in the person of President Clinton would agree to come to Pyongyang and seek their release,” a senior administration official said.

The families passed the request along to Gore, who co-founded the media group that employs the women. Gore then asked the Obama administration if the former president could make the trip.

Once the administration determined that North Korea would indeed release Ling and Lee if Clinton made the trip, the former president agreed to travel to Pyongyang on a “private, humanitarian mission.”

Before leaving for North Korea, Clinton was briefed by Obama national security officials and he also spoke with Gore and the families of the two women. 
 
Once in Pyongyang, where he was greeted with the fanfare of a state visit as opposed to a private humanitarian trip, Clinton secured the women’s release after about three hours and 15 minutes in meetings and over dinner with President Kim Jong-il. 

The U.S. government says it didn’t offer any quid pro quo. But it remains to be  seen what, if anything, Clinton proposed in exchange for the  women’s release.

The North Korean news agency called the Clinton-Kim talks “exhaustive” but maybe they were also exhausting? Especially if the North Korean supreme leader is as sick as reported. 

And in the end, who has enjoyed more coming in from the cold and being in the global spotlight? Kim Jong-il or Bill Clinton?

For more Reuters political news, please click here. 

Photo credits: Reuters/KCNA (Clinton sits with Kim in Pyongyang) ; Reuters/Danny Moloshok (Laura Ling (top) and Euna Lee disembark from plane in United States)

For months, Bill Clinton has stayed out of the diplomatic spotlight in deference to his wife.

But the former U.S. president has dominated the news since he turned up in North Korea seeking the release of two American journalists, while Hillary Clinton headed to Africa for her first major trip there as the top U.S. diplomat.

Secretary of State Clinton stayed out of sight from reporters traveling with her on the 15-hour flight to Kenya. Her staff said she would not comment on her husband’s mission to Pyongyang, which the White House billed as private.

“While the mission is in progress, we will have no comment. Our interest here is the successful completion of the mission and the safe return of the journalists,” said a senior U.S. official traveling with her.

There has been talk in the State Department for weeks over who to send to North Korea to see leader Kim Jong-il and try to free the reporters.

Most bets were on the other Bill — New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson — or Clinton’s vice president Al Gore. The reporters — Euna Lee and Laura Ling — worked for Gore’s California-based media outlet Current TV. 

Reuters photo by Thomas Mukoya ( Hillary Clinton greeted by Kenya’s foreign minister in Nairobi on Aug. 4)

It's one thing they can agree on... baseball. 

Major League Baseball is bringing all five living U.S. presidents together at next week's 80th All-Star Game.

President Barack Obama and his predecessors George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter will appear in a 7-minute video presentation as part of the U.S. sports league's all-star festivities on Tuesday in St. Louis. Baseball called it the first time all living U.S. presidents would participate in a ceremony at a sporting event.

The video address will be part of a pre-game ceremony honoring 30 men and women being recognized by MLB and People magazine for acts of giving and service to their communities. Each person represents one of the sport's 30 teams.

President Obama will follow the video presentation by thorwing out the ceremonial first pitch for the game.

Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Bush hosted meeting at White House for all presidents after  Obama became president-elect)

Haiti is a family concern for Washington power couple, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and husband former President Bill Clinton. 

The Clintons — albeit separately — addressed a donors conference on Haiti on Tuesday — Hillary as the new top diplomat and Bill as the head of his charity.  

In her morning address, Hillary Clinton shared her love for the impoverished nation, revealing she went to Haiti for the first time with her husband soon after they were married. 

“We have a deep commitment to Haiti and the people of Haiti. Our homes are filled with art from Haiti and we have friends who hail from Haiti,” she gushed. 

Clinton will be in Haiti on Thursday, following in her husband’s footsteps after he went there last month along with U.N. Secretary General Ban ki-Moon, who was also at the conference. 

Conference organizers allotted Bill Clinton the prime lunchtime address but the former president was quick to pass on credit to his wife. 
“Besides, the Secretary of State has spoken for my family here today,” he said to laughs from the audience.

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo credits: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton concludes his remarks to the Haiti Donors Conference at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 2009, after his wife, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is greeted when she arrived at the same conference earlier in the day.

President Barack Obama turned his chief rival in the 2008 Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton, into his secretary of state, but is he tapping her for advice on healthcare reform too?
 
Not clear. Clinton, who spearheaded a failed attempt to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system in the 1990s while her husband, Bill Clinton, was president, will be in Europe on Thursday, when Obama holds a “summit” on healthcare reform.
 
So has the White House consulted with the former first lady about the issue?
 
“You know, I don’t know if they have had wide-ranging conversations specifically with Secretary Clinton,” spokesman Robert Gibbs told a White House briefing.
 
“There are still a number of people around that were part of that effort that can be consulted,” he said.
 
Clinton’s failed efforts in the 90s were widely blamed for hurting her husband’s adminstration, with critics citing the secrecy of the process as one of its downfalls.
 
Thursday’s summit is meant to set a process in motion to reduce healthcare costs and extend insurance benefits to millions of Americans who are not covered.
 
Gibbs hinted that the White House would not repeat the former first lady’s mistakes.
 
“I think even those involved in previous efforts would acknowledge misgivings that they had about the way the process worked,” he said. “Tomorrow’s effort is intended to bring about a process that people can be assured is open.”

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lemarque (Obama and Clinton at the State Deptarment on January 22)

Bill Clinton has some advice for President Barack Obama — lighten up a little on the economic comments, dude.

In an interview with ABC News, the former president said he likes the fact that Obama does not engage in happy talk when he says “the economy could get worse before it gets better,” and that the $787 billion economic stimulus plan is only a start on the road to economic recovery.

“I’m glad he shot straight with us,” the husband of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

But, he added, “I just want the American people to know that he’s confident that we are gonna get out of this and he feels good about the long run.”

American presidents often have a tendency to talk up the good things about U.S. policy as a way of trying to encourage Americans, but sometimes that can go too far, as evidenced by President George W. Bush’s repeated reassurances about progress being made in the Iraq war when clearly things were going down hill there.

Clinton, as he did when he was president, took a few shots at the Republicans after most of them voted against the stimulus.

“I think there are some of them who really believe that just-say-no politics is good politics,” he said.
Photo credit: REUTERS/Christian Hartmann (Clinton speaks in Davos, Jan 29)

WASHINGTON - Bill Clinton was not in the room, but his presence was certainly felt at Hillary Clinton’s long confirmation hearing on Tuesday.

As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee considered her nomination to be Barack Obama’s Secretary of State, Republicans on the  panel raised the potentially thorny subject of the former president’s charity, which has received donations from several nations including the governments of Saudi Arabia and Norway.

They questioned whether appropriate steps had been taken to avoid possible foreign policy conflicts if Sen. Clinton, of New York, is confirmed.

“I think a lot of folks legitimately share these concerns across the spectrum, from the New York Times to Senator Lugar, who submitted some questions about it to me,” Louisiana Republican David Vitter said.

Richard Lugar of Indiana, the panel’s senior Republican, had raised the issue earlier in the hearing.  Clinton gave a lengthy response to Vitter and offered to go into even more detail. But Vitter was concerned about running out of time.

“Mr. Chairman, I have no objection listening to this, but I’d like it not to come out of my time, because I’d like to pursue these questions,” Vitter said.

“Well, I guess it’s fair to say that if you ask a question, you deserve an answer, and the answer traditionally comes out of the time of the senator,” committee Chairman John Kerry of Massachusetts responded.

Later, when Virginia Democrat James Webb finally greeted Clinton, he noted that he had the pleasure of having sat through the entire day-long hearing. “I’m so far down the food chain that I had to wait until 3 o’clock this afternoon to ask my questions,” the freshman senator said.

 The hearing began at 9:30 a.m.

Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Clinton with daughter Chelsea in background)

U.S. Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton won the swift and hearty support of one former globe-trotting U.S. president: her husband, Bill Clinton. 

Just minutes after President-elect Barack Obama nominated Hillary Clinton as his top diplomat on Monday, Bill Clinton issued a statement of praise.

“As an American, I am thankful,” Bill Clinton said. “As her husband, I am deeply proud.”

Bill and Hillary Clinton had crossed swords with Obama in her failed bid to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

But the Clintons set aside any hard feelings to campaign for Obama against Republican rival John McCain in the general election.

Obama rewarded their efforts by picking the former first lady turned U.S. senator from New York for his cabinet. Bill Clinton said that he made a perfect pick.

“She is the right person for the job of helping to restore America’s image abroad, end the war in Iraq, advance peace and increase our security, by building a future for our children with more partners and fewer adversaries,” Bill Clinton said.

“I commend President-Elect Obama for asking her to be a part of a great national security team. America will be well-served,” Clinton said.