Hello
As someone who needed a while to choose between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the day he appointed her to be Secretary of State - I knew for sure that he was the right man at the right time and the right place. Ever since, i've been fascinated by their dynamics and i think it's not too soon to say that this is a very good partnership between two people who were able to put behind a bitter campaign, and rose to the challenge.
So, obviously, this warrant a photo diary (Pictures by Getty, AP and Pete Souza). Please don't hot-link.
Enjoy.
This is how it started:
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Remember this?
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And this?
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Yes, it was nasty for a while.
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(Photo: Charles Ommanney)
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But then it ended:
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And we all went to Denver:
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And time did some healing.
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And together the two of them begun to do stuff like this:
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And to look like this:
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And Bill came along too:
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And just like that, look who was president Obama's choice for Secretary of State (not before being considered for VP):
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And now they've been working together for 16 months:
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And can laugh about it.
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And Bill is doing all kinds of stuff with and for the president:
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And everybody still scratch their heads, wondering how the hell it happened:
.......Sixteen months after Mr. Obama surprised nearly everyone by picking her as secretary of state, the two have again surprised nearly everyone by forging a credible partnership. Mrs. Clinton has proved to be an eager team player, a tireless defender of the administration, ever deferential to Mr. Obama and careful to ensure that her husband, the former president, does not upstage her boss.
...They now joke about their "frenemies" status and have made gestures toward each other’s families. When Mr. Obama learned that Chelsea Clinton had become engaged, he turned to Mrs. Clinton and asked, "Does she want a White House wedding?" a senior official recalled. (Mrs. Clinton declined, saying the offer was "sweet" but would be "inappropriate.") And when Mrs. Clinton traveled to Honolulu in January, she paid tribute to Mr. Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, in a speech she gave while looking over a garden dedicated to Ms. Dunham.
...Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton used humor publicly to take the sting out of their once toxic rivalry. At a summit meeting in April, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, confessed that he had never expected Mr. Obama to be elected president. "Well, neither did I," Mrs. Clinton joked.
A few weeks later, at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, Mr. Obama celebrated his new chumminess with Mrs. Clinton. "The second she got back from Mexico," he said, "she pulled me into a hug and gave me a big kiss — told me to get down there myself." Mexico was then battling a swine flu outbreak....
....Mrs. Clinton has also taken on duties that go beyond her job description. At the request of the White House, she made calls to wavering lawmakers to enlist their support for health care legislation late last year. When the House first passed its health care bill, she called the president at Camp David to congratulate him.
The praise has flowed both ways. One Saturday last October, Mr. Obama got news that Mrs. Clinton had salvaged a pact to normalize relations between Turkey and Armenia after a last-minute snag had threatened to derail it. He tracked down Mrs. Clinton in her limousine in Zurich to congratulate her. "It was like a high-five coming through the phone," an aide said....
...For all the concerted efforts to make nice, though, it took the near collapse of the climate-change summit meeting in Copenhagen in December to get Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton working together without a script.
China and other big developing countries were balking at any deal that mandated reducing emissions. Europeans were declaring failure. On a rainy morning, Mr. Obama, fresh off Air Force One, arrived at the Bella Center, an emptied-out mega-mall, the shoe and clothing stores populated only by mannequins. His secretary of state greeted him with a warning.
"Mr. President, this is the worst meeting I’ve been to since the eighth-grade student council," Mrs. Clinton said, according to officials who were there. Negotiations had stalled; no one knew what to do next. There was not even a scheduled meeting for Mr. Obama to attend.
Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton concluded that the United States needed to confront China and the other countries. But for hours that day, leaders of those nations seemed to be avoiding the two Americans. Indeed, as they finally were making their way to meet with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China, two Chinese officials rushed up. "Not ready yet!" they said, motioning them away.
Mr. Obama shot Mrs. Clinton a glance. "Come on, let’s just do this," he said, according to his aides. Mrs. Clinton plowed ahead, around the Chinese officials and into the room, where Mr. Wen and the leaders of Brazil, India and South Africa were seated. There was a collective gasp when Mrs. Clinton barged in, smiling. And then, right behind her, Mr. Obama. "Hi everybody!" he said. "Mr. Premier, are you ready to see me?"
Sitting side by side, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton negotiated for more than an hour, drafting language like the lawyers they are. In the end, the countries agreed to monitor progress toward pollution-reduction standards and set a goal to limit the rise in global temperatures. It was, by American and European standards, a spectacularly weak outcome.
But for the president and his secretary of state, it was a conspicuous personal achievement: they had passed their first major test of working together on the world stage. "This was an opportunity for us to basically make a decision that was not on anybody’s itinerary," Mrs. Clinton said in the interview. "You went with your gut on this."
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But you see, that's the thing about having great leaders, as oppose to whatever there is on the other side. Great leaders put country first. And great leaders who fought for the right to be the first black man or the first woman in the Oval Office - knows what history means. And only great leaders can take a bitter rivalry and turn it into something like this, for the greater good:
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Completely off topic, couple of new WH vids. One promote this year's HCR benefits. The other is just another proof how unpopular this president is:
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