HOST: BONNIE ERBE PANELISTS: IRENE NATIVIDAD, LINDA CHAVEZ, DEBRA CARNAHAN, CHERI JACOBUS SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2012 TRANSCRIPT PROVIDED BY DC TRANSCRIPTION – WWW.DCTMR.COM MS. ERBE: This week on “To the Contrary,” first, Hillary Clinton’s future plans and her impact on gender equity. Then, healthy up, says First Lady Michelle Obama to public schools and the lunches they serve. Behind the headlines: could Wisconsin send the first out lesbian to the U.S. Senate? (Musical break.) MS. ERBE: Hello. I’m Bonnie Erbe. Welcome to “To the Contrary,” a discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives. Up first, Hillary’s next move. (Begin video segment.) MS. ERBE: This year could bring an end to Hillary Clinton’s political career. This week, Secretary Clinton told her staff at the State Department she’s ready to go. SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: But I think after 20 years – it will be 20 years – of being on the high wire of American politics and all of the challenges that come with that, it would be probably a good idea to just find out how tired I am. MS. ERBE: Clinton also said she’s not watching the Republican debates. Her comments come after widespread talk that she should be Obama’s 2012 running mate. The Gallup poll rates Clinton the most admired woman in America for 10 years at 64 percent approval rating right now, the highest of any American political figure. (End video segment.) MS. ERBE: Irene Natividad, how will Hillary Clinton’s absence from American politics impact politics? MS. NATIVIDAD: Well, she may be tired right now but she’s not done. So I think she’s going to continue to impact on women’s lives, whether she is in politics, and I think she may come back, or out of it. MS. CHAVEZ: Well, as someone who has grown to both respect and admire Hillary Clinton, even though I don’t agree with her on very much, I think she’s going to be sorely missed. MS. CARNAHAN: You know, I’ve known Hillary Clinton for – oh, gosh – 30 years now, and this is what I would say: she may not be in political office but she’s still going to be in politics. Having said that, her leaving the Secretary of State’s Office is going to open a position and perhaps a spotlight for another talented woman. MS. JACOBUS: I don’t think it’s going to have any effect. I think she’s had an effect previously being in politics and it will have a lasting impact, but there have been other women who have been in politics and it’s not that uncommon. And she’ll continue to stay active and maybe even come back. MS. ERBE: Well, don’t you think though as secretary of state, at least on the international front, she’s done more to bring women’s issues to the fore way more than Condoleezza Rice or Madeleine Albright, who preceded her? MS. CHAVEZ: Well, it may be that she’s focused more on women’s issues. I don’t think she has been as effective a secretary of state as either of her predecessors. And I don’t think that’s her fault. I think that the Obama administration has wanted to sort of keep her under wraps and they’ve done things, as a lot of White Houses do, out of the White House, out of the NSC. I think she’s been less – MS. ERBE: Keep under wraps? What universe – why are you and I living in different universes? MS. CHAVEZ: I don’t think – I mean, I don’t think she’s been at the heart of the most important foreign policy discussions and issues of – MS. NATIVIDAD: I don’t know what – I disagree. I don’t know where you are, but everybody gives her high marks during her tenure as secretary of state. MS. ERBE: Libya – she led the effort to get – you know. MS. NATIVIDAD: But in terms of women, no other secretary of state created an office that just addressed and put a high level assistant, if you will, to spearhead that. And she brings it up each time. And she salutes women of achievement. She just created this International Council of Women to continue this push that has Cheri – MS. CHAVEZ: And I don’t disagree with that, a thing you’ve said, Irene. I’m talking about things like the Middle East. I don’t think she’s been a big player on that issue. I look at North Korea. I don’t think she’s been a big player on that issue. I look at the major foreign policy challenges, dealing with the Arab world. I don’t think that she has been in the forefront. And I don’t think it’s her fault. I think she’s been left out. MS. NATIVIDAD: Well, it’s not a question of fault. It may be our country’s position during the Arab spring to have a certain step back, if you will, as opposed to being a much more aggressive presence. That may be foreign policy, not necessarily a failure. MS. JACOBUS: There’s a disconnect between President Obama and Hillary Clinton. It goes back to the campaign. He needed her as secretary of state but she almost operates as an entire separate entity. You get the feeling she does her own thing and does he need her as vice president? Yes, probably. But she doesn’t need him should she choose to run for president someday. She just doesn’t. That’s not a launching pad for her. So, at this point, this has really been her job, not a job that she really does for the president. That’s the impression I have. MS. NATIVIDAD: I disagree. (Cross talk.) MS. CARNAHAN: I’m going to disagree with that. And I like Bonnie’s point and want to come back to it, about Libya. I mean, how do you reconcile with Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton – we’ve had women here making decisions – MS. CHAVEZ: I’m sorry, Debra, but Libya is not the center of the universe in terms of U.S. foreign policy. It’s a sort of minor country and it is a kind of minor issue. MS. CARNAHAN: You know what? I don’t think it was minor. It wasn’t minor at all. And there was a lot of crisis that went on. MS. ERBE: Gaddafi was minor? MS. CHAVEZ: Egypt was far more important. And Syria – nothing has happened in there. So, Libya, yes. MS. CARNAHAN: Libya turned out well so it’s not important. MS. CHAVEZ: Well, no – it isn’t that it’s – I don’t think that that – that the big issues that we have to deal with as a country that she has been front and center in the way Henry Kissinger and the way Colin Powell was, I just don’t see it. MS. JACOBUS: Or Condoleezza Rice. MS. CHAVEZ: Or Condoleezza Rice. MS. JACOBUS: Condoleezza Rice was – I mean, Condoleezza Rice, she was going head to head with Dick Cheney and some of the other huge players. So she did have a say. She wasn’t kept off to the side like Hillary Clinton has been. MS. NATIVIDAD: But you know what? But during her tenure, it was said that she didn’t have the kind of impact that Cheney had. Only after – so let’s wait for Hillary’s parting. MS. JACOBUS: She was national security adviser. MS. NATIVIDAD: Can we go back to – can we go back to her impact? MS. CARNAHAN: She’s had a lot more power and autonomy than some of the secretary of state that you have named. MS. JACOBUS: Autonomy, not power. MS. CARNAHAN: That doesn’t mean – she has a lot of power. She’s completely over the people that came to the Department of State. She completely picked them herself. She’s over USAID. She has a lot of power. MS. ERBE: And, by the way, in terms of Egypt, when they started – which to me – you know, the Arab spring – I saw Iran breaking out all over the Middle East. MS. CHAVEZ: Another area in which she didn’t have a lot of (results?). MS. ERBE: But wait a minute. That’s not true because she did – first of all, she was involved in watching what was going on there and deciding how much if any U.S. intervention there should be. But she also, when they started rolling back women’s rights, that week she came out and made a statement and took them to task. MS. CHAVEZ: I said you guys are right on women’s rights. She is the feminist secretary of state. That happens not to be my focus. I am more interested in the U.S.’s role in the world. MS. ERBE: Yes, but it was a major role in Egypt. You said she – Egypt was more important and she wasn’t involved. MS. NATIVIDAD: Can we just talk about her general impact in terms of politics? When she talked about being on the high wire, this wasn’t just any old secretary of state. It was one who’s closely watched. When she was a senator, one closely watched, reelected with 60 percent of the vote in a tough state that doesn’t suffer fools. When she was first lady, she was an activist first lady. When she was first lady of Arkansas, she led the education reform.