Hillary Clinton: Vanity Fair's Woman of the World

 Illustration by Edward Sorel.

Jonathan Alter's new Vanity Fair piece on Hillary Clinton looks interesting. Alter's a great reporter. And love her or hate her, the Secretary of State and former First Lady is a fascinating character. The teaser says it all:

Her lightning-rod years behind her, Hillary Clinton is an administration star and a formidable, low-maintenance secretary of state. As she grapples with the Arab Spring, Jonathan Alter steals quality time with the ever airborne diplomat in chief.

I used to loathe her. That was based on my belief that she was untrustworthy and of bad character. While I always saw her as wickedly intelligent, I believed her motives to be deeply suspect. Her support for the invasion of Iraq and all things Neoconservative proved me right. It was her well-earned downfall. Had she displayed the same courageous intellectual independence Barack Obama did by opposing the invasion, she probably would've won the 2008 Democratic nomination.

That was then, this is now.

Since her defeat, she's done an admirable job dusting herself off and moving forward. I've been impressed by her joining Team Obama and putting her formidable talents to good use as secretary of state. She's done a great job so far in that post. And thankfully, the animosity I used to feel for her has disappeared. Somewhere along the line following the 2008 primaries, I think Hillary's motives became truer than they have ever been. And that accounts for much of her current success.