Posted on 02/22/2009 9:16:58 PM PST by maccaca
A seasoned campaigner for high political office, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton worked the crowds in Asia on her maiden tour in office, making good on a promise to reach out to the world.
And though she is a tough competitor who narrowly lost the race for the US presidency last year, Clinton proved a hit with many when she showed her softer side.
Appearing at a university campus in Tokyo, she charmed and inspired her audience with self-deprecating jokes about her roller-coaster public life and lofty talk about the planet’s future.
In Jakarta, she poked fun at her music tastes on a popular TV show and mixed with smiling and cheering crowds in a slum benefiting from US aid projects.
Clinton moved an audience of 2,000 at Ewha University in Seoul, the largest women’s college in the world, becoming deeply personal at one point when she spoke of her love for her husband.
In Beijing, she spoke humbly about past US environmental mistakes when she visited a clean-energy plant to highlight the need for international cooperation in fighting climate change.
Less hard-edged than she often appeared to be during the presidential campaign, the 61-year-old has basked in the glow of warm contact with private citizens and public officials alike.
Upon meeting Clinton, one of China’s top officials, Dai Bingguo (戴秉國), said: “And you look younger and more beautiful than you look on TV.”
She reddened, before replying: “Well, we will get along very well.”
JFK (1961) — “We will bear any burden and pay any price in the defense of liberty!”
HRC (2009) — “Just continue buying our massive debt and we’ll look the other way.”
Evil. Just plain evil.
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