The Return of Huma?

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While I do hope that Sonal Shah becomes a permanent part of Obama’s administration, I am much more excited to see where my Huma Abedin ends up. Reggie Love ended up besting her for the role of “body man/woman” but you can’t keep this woman down for long. Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic has the latest gossip for us Huma watchers. You guessed it, she will probably follow Clinton to State, showing the world a whole new face of America:

I’ve been a Clinton Kremlinologist for years, and although there are many armor-plated guardians of Clinton’s inner circle, Huma Abedin has been the toughest to crack. No exaggeration: with Clinton heading to State, Abedin is going to be a major force in American diplomacy for the next several years.

Abedin was one of the First Lady’s travelling personal assistants during the second term, but hasn’t been only that for years Formally, she is a Senior Advisor to Senator Clinton, and was her Travelling Chief of Staff during the campaign. In that latter role, she was in charge of the roadshow, one of the few parts of the campaign that met with near universal praise, both internally and externally.

She is part of the crucial connective tissue between HRC and her far flung world of supporters, friends, staff, former staff, advisors, donors, on and on. Not a gatekeeper, because she is famous for her openess and sharing even the smallest details with HRC to keep her fully briefed, and manages some of the biggest egos around with diplomatic aplomb (I can only imagine.. “Hi Huma, it’s Dick Holbrooke and I REALLY need to talk to Hillary about this Jim Steinberg thing”)

The totality of Huma is much more in line with the mythical “Aide de Camp” of old (people like David Petraeus were at one point someone else’s Aide de Camp, and we have no doubt that Huma will one day have her very own)

People who know her say she is a full and crucial member of HRC’s state department and she will be playing a big role at Foggy Bottom – and anyone there or elsewhere that short changes her as a “personal assistant” does so at their own risk.

She is also a Muslim who speaks fluent Arabic –her mother runs a university in Saudi Arabia — and brings that perspective on a complex part of the world to HRC’s sphere. it’s not uncommon to see Huma on Bill Clinton’s important trips to the region, because he too values her in that way. [Link]

Look, for some time now we’ve had a problem between Israel and the Palestinians. Can we get Huma on that? U.S. missiles in Poland? Mr. Putin, we have a Ms. Abedin on Line 1 for you. I am just saying folks, for those of you who didn’t think it was a good idea for Obama to form a team of rivals by including HRC, this little bonus should allay your fears.

62 thoughts on “The Return of Huma?”

  1. 50 · dr amonymous said

    From a moral vantage point, given the immense amount of damage the U.S. government has done to Muslims in the last few decades, both within and outside the United States, and the anger that this has produced, I understand what emotional place the demand might come from and what suspiciously hegemonic place the demand might be met from.

    The U.S. is a large country with a history of interventionist policies and bad things have happened, but that is only one side of the picture.

    *The US attacked Christian Serbia and supported Muslim Kosovars *The US defended Muslim Kuwaiti people during Saddam’s army’s invasion. *The US assisted the Mujahedin in Afghanistan *The US provided air power to protect Iraq’s Kurds and Shia *The US supported Bosnia and was among the principle leaders in the chase for Radovan Karadzic *The US defended Turkey from Iraq’s aggression. *The US has provided $50 billion in aid to Egypt since 1975 *Iraq is a blemish but the whole US gov did not have evil neocon intentions

    However you read into those incidents, the US’s moral vantage point remains relevant for a reason. As a comparison, look at how Muslim Saudi Arabia has treated their supposed fellow Palestinian brethren or look at the human rights record of lower class Muslim workers in places like Dubai. In 2002, why did the Taliban always rush to surrender to the Americans rather than their fellow Muslim neighbors? Everybody is not angry with the US.

  2. This was after you said fuck you, so you are not entitled to this objection. jeez this is beginning to sound like third grade 🙂

    no, the fuck you was in response to the dismissal (comment # 17). check the trajectory, tasalli se.

    There is no such thing as a disinterested stance.

    i don’t have a disinterested stance. in fact, i point out what matters to make when i make each stance.

    note:

    At the end of the day, I will not celebrate a desi win if I felt it entailed some kind of tokenization. My politics comes first
    education is an issue that I care about
    I do tend to give more to Indian charities, or prioritize books by desi authors. I’d probably donate to an Indian conservation project versus a Kenyan one (say) if I could donate to only one of those. I do feel a huge debt to the Indian state.

    every sentence makes a priority explicit and provides a personal ideological reason. i don’t see how you bring ‘disinterestedness’ or ‘obectivity’ as a refutation of some sort when my comment #12 is entirely about a very personal set of norms that i follow/wish to follow myself. i explicitly link my actions to my self-interest (an impossibility according to you, because posturing liberals always wish to conceal their self-interest!!!)

    at the end of the paragraph, i emphasize again that my values are personal and self-interested, grounded in who i am, but this seems to have escaped your attention:

    Just FYI, I’m DBD and think my moral philosophy makes sense to me. But only me, perhaps 🙂
    I have science on my side (although public opinion may be against me).

    you may have science on your side, although that is not evinced on this thread. what you don’t have on your side is an ability to give my arguments a fair reading, possibly because you’re concerned about whether i am posturing to be on a ‘higher moral ground.’ that is a matter of opinion and you’re entitled to yours.

    I think I am well within my rights to use the L word as a slur at least in this context.

    in that case, i think my response was actually quite measured and my expletive-containing outburst was well-deserved. slurs add no value to anybody’s stance. were you trying to provoke me? you succeeded, and how!

    The difference between the public and the private sphere that you speak of is a fantasy derived by way of Christian theology that is expressed in secular terms…. Conservatives are open about their self interest, liberals imagine that they are being fair and balanced.

    just so you know, the american constitution and legal system makes this distinction all the time and it is the bedrock of the bill of rights. and your besties scalia and thomas will laugh you out on this claim (“fantasy derived….”). you’re right that the public-private distinction becomes untenable/difficult to make in the hard cases, but those are not the usual cases by definition (eg it is hard to say whether a privately donated artwork featuring the ten commandments when it has been public land for many years constitutes government speech or not. a case like this is on the supreme court docket now).

    meanwhile, conservatives have always used the public/private distinction to their advantage: to ask for expanded gun rights, to shoot poeple on sight in their backyards, to block domestic violence and marital rape legislation…

    Please, (anyone) tell me how can I say that liberals are hypocrites in a polite way? (this is not against you, port in particular).

    ah, brave conservative, bite the bullet on this one, won’t you? miss manners is probably a liberal, anyway, so who cares? i won’t be baited into name-calling the conservatives so of whom i actually respect (eg rob and manju).

  3. 34 · bess said

    I’ve been in line behind Manju this whole time.

    The lengths you will go to gaze upon my sublime buttocks.

  5. 53 · Manju said

    The lengths you will go to gaze upon my sublime buttocks.

    well, not only gaze, my dear NIMBY-pamby manju. we self-interested hypocritical liberals have fought vociferously to decriminalize certain acts, so that your posterior (and posterity too) can be the beneficiary of our posturing.

  6. 17 · Divya said

    But of course the everything-is-equal brigade must object. I have to say I’m surprised and delighted to see this form of human-ness from Taz who I always thought was head of the aforementioned brigade.

    probably too difficult for you to comprehend, but the usual conservative slur of liberals is that they are slaves to interest group politics, and it is the conservatives who are anti special accommodations for particular groups/minorities. get your slurs straight.

  7. 43 · Divya said

    There is no such thing as a disinterested stance.

    my wide stance was completely disinterested.

  9. Manju:

    The lengths you will go to gaze upon my sublime buttocks.

    And you’re always going “touch it, touch it (pat, pat) I could crack a peanut with these.” How could I not gaze?
    razib:

    i keep seeing “the return of hume” 🙂

    oh no you kant.

  11. ‘it’s not uncommon to see Huma on Bill Clinton’s important trips to the region, because he too values her in that way’

    i bet he does 😉

  12. People who know her say she is a full and crucial member of HRC’s state department and she will be playing a big role at Foggy Bottom – and anyone there or elsewhere that short changes her as a “personal assistant” does so at their own risk.

    Abhi – can you tell us more about her qualifications? The little I have read about her seems to focus on her looks, fashion sense and her “exotic” background. There is little information on her education and qualifications beyond being Clinton’s bodywoman.