In case you missed the Jan. 27 broadcast of CBS’ “60 Minutes,” you should be elated in knowing that you essentially missed 60 minutes of shameless, mutual gratification between the president and outgoing secretary of state.
However, if you are still curious as to what the particular interview entailed, I wanted to appease your curiosity with a recap of the interview between Steve Kroft, President Barack Obama, and exiting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
First, rather than grilling Obama and Clinton on their foreign failures or praising the two on their foreign advancements over the past four years, CBS correspondent Kroft emphasized that the “improbable” interview was Obama’s idea.
In fact, Obama explicitly stated that his sole purpose for arranging the television special was to “publicly thank” Clinton for being a “great collaborator” and “one of the finest secretaries of state ever.”
Nauseated yet? I’ll proceed . . .
After going on and on about the “strong friendship” between him and Clinton, Obama goes on to claim that he will “miss Clinton a great deal” due to their partnership in making “tough decisions together” while in office.
Between irresistible laughs and smiles, Clinton makes the thoughtful claim that both she and Obama were both simply “gluttons for punishment” in their political roles and that despite having tense beginnings, the personal relationship between the two political figures has flourished with a boost from their “love for this country.”
I’d hate to sound like another jaded, cynical commentary writer, but I can ensure you that I have never gained such minimal insight from a political interview.
The most interesting portion of the segment is when Kroft hints at the apparent artificiality between the two and sarcastically inquires, “I have to ask, what’s the date of expiration on this endorsement?”
Obama responds by grinning and accusing the press of being “incorrigible” and Clinton claims that as Secretary of State she is “out of politics” and “forbidden from even hearing these types of questions,” in between chuckling, of course.
In other words, Kroft’s attempts to bring any level of seriousness to the interview are immediately stifled by Obama and Clinton’s love for each other. Kroft’s other attempt to bring a sense of tension and reality to the conversation occurs when he brings up the heated primary debates between Clinton and Obama in past years and Clinton’s shocking decision to serve in the President’s Cabinet.
Kroft states, “You’ve been quoted as thinking or telling people there was no way you were going to take this job and you weren’t going to let anyone talk you into it . . . what did he say that night to you?”
Clinton responds to the question by claiming not only that she planned to return to the Senate where she would “support the President on all issues” but also that he was also “very persuasive” when they discussed the matter in Chicago. President Obama claimed that it was their agreement on the issues that made for “tough debates” because they “could never decide what they differed on.”
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton’s 60-minute interview was certainly a heart-warming tale, but I think they could have expressed their mutual love more appropriately in a five-minute slot.