Clinton shines on ‘Meet the Press’

•Secretary Clinton was interviewed by David Gregory for the full hour of Meet the Press yesterday, and she did an outstanding job. She answered each question clearly, intelligently, and — of course — diplomatically. For example, when asked whether she would be betraying the democracy movement in Iran by engaging and negotiating with the regime it aims to overthrow, Clinton responded:

We have negotiated with many governments who we did not believe represented the will of their people. Look at all the negotiations that went on with the Soviet Union. Look at the breakthrough and subsequent negotiations with communist China. That’s what you do in diplomacy. You don’t get to choose the people; that’s up to the internal dynamics within a society. But clearly, we would hope better for the Iranian people. … Yet, we also know that whoever is in charge in Iran is going to be making decisions that will affect the security of the region and the world.”

•Clinton also engaged in a bit of damage control after Vice President Joe Biden’s eyebrow-raising comments that Russia was a country with a “withering economy” and was “clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable.” Clinton told Gregory, “We view Russia as a great power.” She added:

What we’re seeing here is the beginning of the resetting of that relationship, which I have been deeply involved in. I will be co-chairing a presidential commission along with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. We’ll be following up on what our two presidents said in Moscow. And the Russians know that, you know, we have continuing questions about some of their policies, and they have continuing questions about some of ours.”

•Clinton, above, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner are leading the U.S. delegation at the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue today and tommorow in Washington. Clinton opened the talks by saying that China and the United States “are laying brick by brick the foundation of a stronger relationship” and that it is time to transition from “a multipolar world to a multipartner world.”

•Clinton will be visiting Nigeria Aug. 10 to 12. She’ll also be visiting four other African countries — Kenya (the birthplace of President Obama’s father), and tentatively Angola, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — Dow Jones Newswires reports.

Photos, from top to bottom: Meet the Press,
Alex Wong/Getty Images