Hillary Clinton in Winnipeg: An Exercise in Cognitive Dissonance
Hillary Clinton in Winnipeg: An Exercise in Cognitive Dissonance
Thursday, 05 February 2015 10:05
By Harrison Samphir, Truthout | News Analysis
On January 21, almost 2,000 people filled the RBC Convention Centre in downtown Winnipeg to see former US senator, first lady and secretary of state Hillary Clinton. At $300 per ticket, the event attracted plenty of affluent Manitobans - lawyer-philanthropist Gail Asper, University of Manitoba president David Bernard, hospitality mogul Doug Stephen - members of the media and other spectators.
Clinton was in the city as part of the Global Perspectives series sponsored by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC). The afternoon event was the first in a two-stop tour also including an evening date in Saskatoon.
It's part of an embryonic presidential campaign, her second, expected to be announced officially in the spring. She previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama during the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, but became his secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. During that period, she presided over a tumultuous office, at its lowest point accepting responsibility for the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, during an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi during the Libyan civil war in 2012.
In Winnipeg, the former secretary of state spoke on foreign policy, Canada-US relations, human rights and terrorism. She expectedly avoided the topic of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a project she said is "in our process, where it belongs," but discussed at length the recent assault on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, and what she described as a growing atmosphere of global insecurity spurred by rising extremism in the global south. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/28926-hillary-clinton-in-winnipeg-an-exercise-in-cognitive-dissonance