Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice managed to praise her successor Hillary Clinton while at the same time criticizing her boss, President Obama for pursuing strategies that have led the country astray.
“I think she’s done a fine job. The problem isn’t Hilary Clinton, who’s great,” Rice said to members of Ohio’s delegation to the Republican National Convention. “The problem is that we’ve chosen to speak with a muted voice about America’s role in the world. We’ve chosen to try to lead from behind. That’s an oxymoron in my mind.”
Rice went after Obama in her comments, a likely prelude to her speech to the entire convention tonight in prime time. Rice was the preferred choice of many Republicans for vice president, but she repeatedly said she didn’t want the job.
She told the delegates here that America has been “leading from behind” during the Obama administration, according to NBC News.
“We are united by a belief that you can come from humble circumstances and you can do great things. And today people wonder: Is that still true? Are America’s best days behind us?” Rice said. “And I want to tell you, as a former secretary of state, it’s not just something that Americans wonder, it’s something that people around the world wonder too. Because when the United States is not feeling strong and confident at home, it shows abroad. And when the United States is not willing to speak with a robust voice for free peoples and free markets, the world is a pretty chaotic place.”
Rice said the lack of foreign policy experience at the top of the Republican ticket is not a concern.
“The details about what you do about Iran on any given day or what you do about China on any given day. Any smart person can figure that out. But if you don’t have the basic principles in place…then you can’t be a great foreign policy president,” she said.
