While the Obama White House and Washington generally is mired in complex debate over health care reform, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has just taken Asia by storm.
North Korea obligingly helped draw global attention to the trip with harsh and unintentionally humorous commentary describing her variously as a “funny lady,” “primary schoolgirl” and “pensioner going shopping.” This was in response to her public emphasis on U.S. policy of mobilizing international pressure to rein in the increasingly isolated surviving Communist regime, including her complaint that the North Korean leaders are like immature, unruly children.
At the summit, Secretary Clinton signed the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, inspiring ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan to praise a positive “shift in strategy” by the U.S. toward the regional trade organization. The treaty actually is a general, and essentially symbolic, document, but that is an important dimension of diplomacy, and such gestures by the Obama administration automatically generate praise in the aftermath of Bush's unilateralism.
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