Hillary Clinton Is the Awesomest Awesome to Ever Awesome

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Are you sick of unabashed Hillary Clinton fangirling? Then you probably shouldn’t read this.

Is Stephanie McCrummen’s Washington Post profile of Hillary Clinton fawning as fuck? Oh yes — judging by this piece, Hillary is not only the Secretary of State but Superwoman, the Second Coming, and a wonky fun-loving gal who has to be literally torn away from building cookstoves for impoverished women with her bare (yet impeccably manicured) hands. And we’re into it. Here are a bunch of reasons (we lost count) why Hillary Clinton is officially the Best Ever — a title which, after years of both belittlement and hard behind-the-scenes work handling global crises and promoting integral development initiatives by spreading her “21st-century diplomacy” around the world, she deserves.

She doesn’t hold grudges!

One of the first moves Clinton made after becoming Secretary of State was “making good with Obama,” McCrummen writes. Her decision “to sublimate any resentment that had come between her and Obama during their fight for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination” illustrated her desire to serve in whatever capacity.

Hillary Clinton: “Cooperative” is her middle name!

She cares about the little people!

McCrummen believes that Clinton’s most controversial mark on the White House is her push for “expeditionary diplomacy,” the concept that diplomats should actually engage more with people, not just chill at embassies.

Hillary Clinton: “Game Changer” is her middle name!

Like, REALLY cares.

Most of the work she’s done is “obscure,” aka awesome but not showy:

They include promoting a milk cooperative in Malawi and low-pollution “clean” cookstoves in China and attending an environmental summit in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk. They include decidedly unglamorous events, such as a conference devoted to gender-specific data collection, and thousands of miles traveled to often-overlooked places.

Hillary Clinton: “Low-Key Yet Incredibly Effective Multitasker” is her middle name!

She knows her yurts from her gers!

Check out this amazing anecdote, which took place during “a 12-day odyssey” which included meetings in Paris, Kabul, Tokyo, Hanoi, Cairo and Jerusalem:

But the stop Clinton was really looking forward to was Ulan Bator, Mongolia, where she once downed a glass of yak milk in the spirit of diplomacy.
A reporter mentioned that she was scheduled to visit with the Mongolian president in his ceremonial yurt, the traditional Mongol dwelling. Clinton smiled.
“It’s not a yurt,” she corrected, noting that Mongolians prefer not to use the Turkic term. “It’s a ger.”

Hillary Clinton: “If Anyone Else Corrected Your Usage Of ‘Yurt’ It Would Be a Bit Obnoxious But When She Does It It’s So Badass” is her middle name!

She says important shit and we all listen!

According to McCrummen, Clinton spews out integral soundbites on foreign policy with ease:

By the time Clinton’s plane landed at Genghis Khan International Airport, she had already grabbed international headlines.
In Paris, she had blasted Russia and China for “blockading” a solution to the Syrian crisis. In Kabul, she had declared Afghanistan a “non-NATO ally.” In Tokyo, she announced U.S. aid to the Afghan government.

Hillary Clinton: “Outspoken” is her middle name!

But she can also communicate without even saying a word.

After that, she gave a speech to an international women’s group about political liberalization that was clearly aimed at China, but which also emphasized the role of women in politics, words she did not have to utter.

Hillary Clinton: “Silent Yet Deadly” is her middle name!

She takes responsibility!

“I’m the one who sent Chris to Benghazi during the revolution,” she told the Washington diplomatic corps in a “deliberate” tone after the attack on the U.S. post in Benghazi.

Hillary Clinton: “Adult” is her middle name!

She never gets tired!

Her aides started checking their BlackBerrys. Some reporters took a breather. Yet Clinton, sitting at a table full of officials, seemed more energized than ever.

Hillary Clinton: maybe on Adderall? Just kidding. Hillary Clinton: “Tireless” is her middle name!

She understands the internet!

We already know that Clinton’s impressively keyed in regarding memes. But she’s also pretty innovative; she helped launch the LEND Network, which she calls “a new tool that will help countries navigate the transition to sustainable democracy”:

She spoke enthusiastically about the new online forum and how exciting it was to be able to provide “on-demand democracy support” to new leaders in places such as Kyrgyzstan.
“And in a minute,” said Clinton, uttering words that would make no headlines, “we’ll get to see the network in action when the foreign minister of Moldova conducts a live video chat with his former counterpart from Slovakia.”

Hillary Clinton: “Tech-Savvy” is her middle name!

She fights for women’s rights!

At the State Department, Clinton has used her power to create an array of new offices and positions devoted to long-standing causes: for civil society and emerging democracies; for global youth issues; and for the one for which she is most often noted, global women’s issues. She is widely credited with changing how the department thinks about women.
In March, Clinton issued a document titled “Promoting Gender Equality to Achieve Our National Security and Foreign Policy Objectives,” which directs the entire department to include women in everything from budget plans to peace negotiations. Naturally, she backed up the decision with data showing that doing so can advance conflict resolution and unlock economic potential.

Hillary Clinton: “Feminist” is her middle name!

She really cares about cookstoves!

“People roll their eyes when she talks about clean cookstoves,” said Anne-Marie Slaughter, Clinton’s policy planning chief until last year. “But if the Alliance for Clean Cookstoves succeeds” – an initiative Clinton launched to get 100 million homes to ditch toxic fires for clean-burning stoves – “we will have reduced carbon, improved women’s security and saved millions of lives, and that is enormous.”

Hillary Clinton: “See, This Is Why You Should Also Care About Cookstoves” is her middle name!

She understands young people!

Clinton speaks eloquently about the plight of young people instead of bitching about Millenials:

Clinton has cast her choices as a response to a changing world where power and threats are more diffuse, requiring the United States to pay more attention to jobless youths in North Africa and grinding poverty across the globe.
“We cannot assume that we are going to be understood and appreciated when so much of the world is young, without much of a sense of the historical antecedents of who we are, where we came from, what we did,” she said in the interview. “So we have to be everywhere.”

Hillary Clinton: “Maybe She’ll Guest Star on Girls Next Season?” is her middle name!

She has fun!

Of course Clinton “seemed to be having a blast” while giving a characteristic speech “touching on evidence-based analysis, building capacity in poor nations, women as economic agents, self-sufficiency and throwing out old development orthodoxies.” Of course she did.

Hillary Clinton: “Wonk” is her middle name!

She’s Perfect?

Bill Clinton once called his wife a “walking NGO” and said she’s not just a person who tries to prevent global crises, but that “she tries to make good things happen.”

Hillary Clinton: “Walking NGO” is her middle name! (Thanks, Bill.)

She stays true to herself!

Clinton’s friends say that she “has not really changed except to become more of the person she has always been: a deeply optimistic Methodist who believes that government can advance human progress and a hopeless wonk who knows her yurts from her gers.” They also say that, even though she’s good at politics, “she is never more energized or relentless as when she is pursuing a cause that she believes will improve people’s lives, however incrementally.”

Hillary Clinton: OMG, I’m getting teary, I need a break.

McCrummen repeatedly states that no one, including Clinton herself, knows what’s next now that she’s stepping down as Secretary of State, but that if she doesn’t run for president in 2016 — or stick around in some do-goodery capacity — we will never hear the sound of children’s laughter or see sunlight ever again.

Seriously, though: it must be beyond frustrating for Clinton that she is only now, at 65, “more beloved than at any point in her long and at times controversial career,” but we can only hope that she keeps on going. McCrummen is unsure whether Clinton will be able to “keep herself from” running for prez (because she just cares that much); could she be right? Hil: think of the cookstoves!

How Hillary Clinton’s choices predict her future [Washington Post]

 
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