On Hillary's Last Day as SecState, WashPost's Anne Gearan Takes Clinton Puffery to MSNBC
Washington Post diplomatic correspondent Anne Gearan has repeatedly blown kisses to Hillary Clinton in the past few months with her gauzy coverage of the departing secretary of state's handling of Benghazi. Today she took her show on the road, make that air, as she appeared on MSNBC's Martin Bashir program with Democratic strategist Kiki McLean and guest host former DNC communications director Karen Finney. With MSNBC looking forward giddily to a possible 2016 presidential run, the segment was titled onscreen as "Until We Meet Again."
Sure "[s]he leaves office without huge accomplishments" like groundbreaking peace talks or the like, but she does have "enormous goodwill around the world," Gearan gushed. "Some of her greatest accomplishments really were just showing up," the Post staffer insisted.
Indeed, as I noted last week, Gearan seemed to think that Clinton's showing up at the Benghazi hearings was a masterful valedictory appearance.
Even if the substance of Clinton's record is hardly above-and-beyond the call of duty, the former first lady has "higher, probably, personal ratings than any Secretary of State has had for a long time," Gearan enthused, attributing that in lrge part to her penchant for politician-like "retail diplomacy."
"She brought I think a politician's flare" to the job that "gladhanding and handshaking and doing a personal style of diplomacy" that was appreciated "around the world" as well as inside the State Department, Gearan approvingly noted.
