'She has missed unique opportunities,' said Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), one of the leading congressional voices on human rights. Secretary of State Condoleezza 'Rice started out strong and ended weak,' he said. 'But Secretary Clinton is starting out weak.'
-- a story by Rice biographer and diplomatic correspondent Glenn Kessler, in yesterday's Washington Post.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton begged to differ:
'A mutual and collective commitment to human rights is [as] important to bettering our world as our efforts on security, global economics, energy,climate change and other pressing issues,' Clinton told reporters after meeting
with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi at the State Department. She said she had raised with Yang the issue of Tibet and a resumption of a U.S.-China human rights dialogue.
'The Obama administration is absolutely committed to a robust, comprehensive human rights agenda," she said. "We're going to look for ways where we can be effective, where we can actually produce outcomes that will matter in the lives of people who are struggling for their rights to be full participants in their societies.'
(credit for State Department photo of February 21, 2009, press conference by Clinton and Yang, in Beijing)
