HILLARY'S PROBLEM – AT 9:17 A.M. ET:  If Hillary runs in 2016, she will probably be handed the Democratic nomination as a gift long delayed.  But what happens after that?  Polls show she can be elected with some ease, but I really wonder.  Hillary has a number of liabilities, but one stands out:  She's never actually accomplished anything.  From Byron York at the Washington Examiner:   

Last week Hillary Clinton gave what appeared at first to be a rambling and unfocused answer when asked to name the proudest achievement of her four years as Secretary of State. The short version is, she doesn't have one. But Clinton's words make a lot more sense when seen not as a non-answer to a specific question but as an effort to lay the foundation and establish a theme for a presidential campaign.

And...

"Look, I really see my role as secretary, and in fact, leadership in general in a democracy, as a relay race," Clinton said. "I mean, you run the best race you can run, you hand off the baton. Some of what hasn't been finished may go on to be finished ..."

The answer seemed to concede that there is no single, momentous thing Clinton can point to as having achieved during her years as the nation's top diplomat. As she went on, Clinton instead linked herself to President Obama's achievements -- at least the Democratic version of them -- not in the field of foreign affairs, but at home.

And...

On the basis of that "stimulate and grow" policy, Clinton continued, the United States returned to strength and can now deal with foreign crises like the Ukraine without having to worry about a world economic collapse. "I think we really restored American leadership in the best sense," she said. "That, you know, once again, people began to rely on us, to look at us as, you know, setting the values, setting the standards."

Clinton promised to provide "a lot of particulars" in her upcoming memoir, due in June. But those last few words are likely to be the book's message: She restored American leadership. Without any landmark achievement, she will claim credit — along with the president, of course — for restoring America's place in the world.

It's a vague and highly debatable argument. And in the end, at the "Women in the World" gathering, Clinton seemed to rely mostly on the Obama administration's domestic accomplishments — or at least her version of them — to shore up the case for her performance as Secretary of State. That is pretty much a non sequitur.

COMMENT:  Our foreign policy is a mess, and getting messier, and she owns it.  But foreign policy rarely determines the outcome of elections, so Hillary might survive scrutiny. 

As for Clinton's claim that the Obama administration restored American leadership, do we laugh now, or laugh later?

Will any of this matter?  Clinton will benefit from a biased press even more than Obama did.  The notion of "the first" will be brought up again.  We will be told that, if we don't vote for "the first woman president," we are bigots.  Sadly, that might work, especially with young voters.

April 11, 2014