A 'Beautiful' Secretary of State?

Recently-appointed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already been fast on the move, traveling to different parts of Asia, as President Obama settles into his new job, to set a new tone around the world for America. Both Clinton and Obama aggressively campaigned on recreating the American image world-wide, to improve foreign relations. But the reality is, with all of the crises at home, paramount being the economic meltdown, the face of America will have to be largely be determined by Clinton, as Obama will be hard at work. Well, now that she's traveled, just how has she been received on her way around the world?

After passing through Indonesia on what CBS labeled the "Global Listening Tour," the Jakarta Post wrote that "journalists held their breath" as Clinton met with a foreign ministers. And in a later article, a reporter was quoted as saying, "She looks more beautiful than on TV."

Beautiful and breathless? Really? Are we actually talking about the world-superpower's new leading diplomatic voice and reducing her down to a pretty face?

I'm not certain that Condi Rice was ever complimented this way by the foreign or American press (I lean towards 'no'). But I am certain that when Colin Powell traveled outside the U.S. (which was few and far between, by the way), no member of the media wrote or spoke of how he looked. A Lexis-Nexis search yielded no results; certainly, no one mentioned his beauty.

While Clinton is supposed to be the new face of America, I think it's particularly troubling that we're actually talking about how her face looks, on TV or in person, rather than talking about how she's going to repair America's bruised image.

Didn't the media just spend a whole election talking about how Sarah Palin looked in her designer outfits? Or how about the NY Times and Washington Post doing whole articles on Clinton's laugh and cleavage? Not only did that dialogue offend most Americans (look at nearly any political poll following the election), it distracted us from issues that we just can't afford to be distracted from.

It's more than troubling that we're going through this yet again and we're only one month into the new administration. It's detrimental not only to the women's movement to aesthetically reduce the Secretary of State, but it's counter-productive to the very cause that she and the Obama administration are supposed to represent.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/20/politics/washingtonpost/main4815167.shtml