As the media predictably gush and fawn over the thought of Hillary Clinton as president, there's something extremely obvious they've been missing.
Rather surprisingly, Roger Simon, the perilously liberal chief political columnist at Politico, asked the $64 million question on CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday, "How good a job did she really do as Secretary of State?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: A million things can happen in three years. It's a couple of lifetimes in politics.
ROGER SIMON, POLITICO: If we're going to do premature stories on Secretary Clinton, let's do ones that are what she's going to realistically face if she does become a candidate.
How good a job did she really do as Secretary of State? How good did she do between the Palestinians and the Israelis? How good did she do in Syria? How well did she do in Iran? How well did she do at Benghazi? You know, how well did she do in North Korea?
These are the serious issues that Hillary Clinton will face in the primaries and the general --
KURTZ: And the reason we are seeing very little of that is?
SIMON: Because it's serious stuff.
That's not the whole reason.
The reality is that if such questions had been asked the previous four years - especially after the attack on our consulate in Benghazi last year - it might have impacted Barack Obama's reelection chances.
It goes without saying that the media have been completely ignoring the foreign policy failures of this administration as well as those of Clinton.
The only real significant success this White House has had abroad was killing Osama bin Laden. Apart from that, virtually everything Clinton and Obama touched overseas is in total disarray.
Despite that, because of all the air miles she logged, Clinton is touted by her devotees in the media as having done a fine job at State.
A real examination of her tenure there if it happens would reflect very poorly on Obama, and could seriously jeopardize her presidential hopes.
That, of course, is why it never will happen outside of Fox News, talk radio, and conservative blogs.
Count on it.
