Hillary Clinton won't serve a second term as secretary of State

Posted by Amy Davidson
“No,” “No,” “No,” “No”: those were Hillary Clinton’s full answers to four questions from Wolf Blitzer. He had asked, “If the president is reelected, do you want to serve a second term as secretary of state?” And then, after the first no, if she’d like to be Secretary of Defense, Vice-President, or President of the United States. (How about a ballerina, a firefighter, or an astronaut?) She had a longer response when he asked her why not, though it wasn’t very responsive—it was mostly about how much fun it had been to be Secretary of State. And though she said, after a followup, that she was “moving on” from thoughts of the Presidency, she also used the slightly avoidant “no intention or any idea even of running again.” And where would she get an idea like that?
There was another, questionable no from Clinton today, this one concerning the case of Raymond Davis. “The United States did not pay any compensation,” Clinton said, according to Reuters. Well, but someone did: about two million three hundred thousand dollars to the families of two men Davis shot and killed on the streets of Lahore in what he claimed was self defense, and a third who was killed when a car Davis called for from our consulate slammed through traffic. (I’ve written about Davis, and about the Times’s strange explanation of its decision not to report on his connections to the C.I.A.) Maybe Clinton’s denial is a matter of verb tenses—“did not pay,” as opposed to “is not paying.” (“We expect to receive a bill,” an American official told the Washington Post.) Our government had been trying to assert diplomatic immunity on Davis’s behalf, enraging many people in Pakistan. Pakistani law allows judges to issue a pardon, however, if the family of a victim attests that it has received compensation, and is satisfied. (The provision has its basis in Sharia law; Eric Lach, at TPM, found some irony there.) That is what happened today. Davis is free, Pakistan put its judicial machinery through some formal motions, and it never got to the point where the Pakistani courts had to make a call on the diplomatic-immunity question. But you can’t really call it elegant. There were protests in Lahore when the news came out, and it leaves untouched the larger questions of impunity and covert operations in Pakistan. There are also questions about the pressure the families had on them to settle. A lawyer who had been representing them said that he was held in a room at the courthouse for a number of hours and not allowed to talk to them while the deal was being struck. One of the relatives who won’t be sharing the money is the eighteen-year-old widow of one of the dead men; she is dead, too, now, after killing herself by swallowing rat poison. Was there justice for her? Maybe Hillary Clinton has an answer.

Michel Martelly smart man .

By TRENTON DANIEL
tdaniel@MiamiHerald.com
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      Among Martelly’s biggest fans was Army Col. Michel Francois, who used the nickname “Sweet Micky” on his police radio. Francois, a chief architect of the coup, was convicted in absentia in 1995 on murder charges and now lives in Honduras.
In early 1993, Francois asked Martelly to join protesters when Dante Caputo, the UN special representative to Haiti, arrived at the Port-au-Prince international airport to negotiate Aristide’s return. The greeting wasn’t warm.
“Grenadier! To the attack!” he yelled amid a crowd of several hundred, according to the Miami New Times. “If anyone dies, that’s his business!”
As thousands of Haitians fled the island amid a U.S.-imposed embargo, Martelly put out an album. The title: I Don’t Care. A popular song of the same name carried this refrain, in Creole: “Those who aren’t happy — get out!”
Martelly himself got out after Aristide was ousted in his second term, in 2004, and the country was rife with kidnappings and lawlessness. He also scaled back on the constant touring, spending more time with his wife and four children in a five-bedroom, two-story house the couple purchased in Royal Palm Beach. He has since defaulted on more than $1 million in loans and lost three South Florida properties to foreclosure in just over a year, public records show.
Martelly surprised the country in August when he registered at the election office, hours before his friend Wyclef Jean filed paperwork. Some initially thought the entertainer was joking.
But Martelly showed he was a fighter. When election officials released preliminary results on Dec. 7 that barred him from a run-off, thousands of supporters and anti-government protesters poured into the streets. They paralyzed the capital by burning barricades and buildings.
Under pressure from the international community, election officials released final results showing that Martelly – and not the government’s pick, Jude Celestin – made the second round with Manigat.
“This is not a gift,” Martelly told reporters at the Oloffson.
(On a January visit U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Martelly and the two other candidates. Martelly’s charm was not lost on her. Clinton said: “Whatever happens, don’t lose that smile.”)
Since the election announcement, Martelly has kept a decidedly high profile. He has toured the countryside, hosted rallies, and exchanged online banter with Wyclef. He said he wants to bring back the army Aristide disbanded, redirect government services to the countryside and provide free education to all.
“I think Martelly might become much more polarizing than people think right now,” said Hyppolite Pierre, a Haitian political analyst based in Maryland. “We don’t need polarization in the future.”
Others find him refreshing. Repeatedly, Martelly has said he doesn’t know all the answers and would solicit answers from others — the antithesis of outgoing President René Préval, a reputed micromanager.
“What I like about Martelly is that he admits he’s not a politician,” said Maarten Boute, chief executive officer of Digicel, a cell phone company in Haiti. In a visit to South Florida earlier this month, Martelly spoke to several thousand Haitians at an amphitheater in North Miami Beach. Supporters like Miami physician and philanthropist Rudy Moise joined him on stage. Moise urged the crowd to tell family members in Haiti to pick Martelly in the runoff.
Sporting a dark suit, Martelly cracked a few jokes but mostly maintained a serious tone. He spoke about the need for tourists to invest in “our house,” the importance of Haiti’s Diaspora, and the need for decentralization.
As he wrapped up his 20-minute speech, Martelly tapped into his inner Micky.
“Sak pa kontan…” he said, awaiting a response. Those who aren’t happy…
The crowed roared in delight: “Anbake!” Get out!