Hillary Clinton Confirmation 2009

“The U.N. must reform,” Clinton says. “It has to become more transparent, more efficient and we will press for those changes. At the same time the United States has to be a good partner for the U.N. … We’re going to have to bear our burden. It’s got to be a two-track commitment.” Streamline the [...]

New committee member Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) asks what the State Department can do to bolster its role in international economics.  Clinton: “Obviously Treasury has a huge role to play, but so does the State Department” — like on climate change, energy security and “the meltdown of the international economic regulatory system means our foreign [...]

Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) returns to the “perception” problem with respect to the Clinton Foundation, raising the need for the foundation to “forswear new foreign donations” when Clinton is secretary of state. “This was bound to be a dilemma from the moment that the President-elect asked you to be secretary of state,” Lugar points out, [...]

Now here’s Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), who’s already proven himself to be one of the Senate’s best questioners in his brief tenure. “Should there be a residual force in Iraq?” he asks. The Status of Forces Agreement is pretty clear that there shouldn’t be. “We don’t have a strategy unless we can articulate the endpoint” [...]

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), the Senate’s best moralizing whoremonger, brings out the charts to discuss his “serious concerns” on the Clinton Foundation. There’s no disclosure of contributors, he says, “and that’s a big ommission.” So would Clinton support that?
“It’s not unique for spouses of government officials to work,” she replies. “The Office of Government Ethics, [...]

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Penn.) asks a great question: How can Clinton work with Pentagon chief Bob Gates to reorient the balance of national power?
Clinton praises Gates heavily — message: no Powell/Rumsfeld divide — and then gets on with it. “We are going to be stronger if we are better able to promote diplomacy and development, [...]

“Perception becomes reality so appearance is everything,” says Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), reminding everyone of the Clinton Foundation controversy. That wasn’t passive-aggressive at all, no.
Back to the campaign controversy of last year: should the United States negotiate with its adversaries without preconditions, as President-elect Barack Obama stated last year?

To contrast with Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) question about American sovereignty, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) swings over to the progressive side by asking Clinton about foreign development assistance for the benighted places of the globe. He wants to go beyond just being told that Jack Lew will be on it. “How do we ensure that [...]

Finally, a sovereignty question! I was starting to think the GOP wasn’t what it used to be. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is concerned about American sovereignty at the hands of these globalists, dadgummit.
“I think there are ways we can cooperate more than we have without impeding our sovereignty, our security or our values,” Clinton says, [...]

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) also appeals about conflict of interest, briefly. Amazing how there’s such respectful GOP treatment of Hillary Clinton. He derides the State Department a bit and then asks about promoting U.S. businesses overseas.
Clinton says that “the work of the State Department, both in diplomacy and development, is not well-understood … we have [...]