President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner
at a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in London.
By MARK LANDLER
Published: April 1, 2009
LONDON — For Hillary Rodham Clinton, arriving here on Tuesday night from The Hague was a lesson in the difference between being a supremely important person and just a very important one.
Mrs. Clinton’s government plane was put into a holding pattern in the skies over Stansted Airport because air traffic had been backed up by Air Force One and other planes carrying world leaders to the economic summit meeting here. Once on the ground, her blue-and-white Boeing 757 taxied past President Obama’s much larger 747, parking at a respectful distance.
After jetting around the world for the last two months as the chief emissary of the United States — conferring with presidents, announcing diplomatic overtures and getting rapturous receptions from Indonesia to Turkey — Mrs. Clinton has abruptly become a foot soldier again, in a squad led by her boss.
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Mrs. Clinton will be at Mr. Obama’s side for the next few days, as he travels to a NATO summit meeting in France and Germany, and a European Union gathering in Prague. Aides say it is entirely possible she will not utter a word in public during any of Mr. Obama’s appearances. She has sent her own plane home, kept only a handful of staff members and now views herself as the No. 1 member of the president’s staff, the aides said.
White House officials said Mrs. Clinton’s collegial, pragmatic approach has enhanced her influence with Mr. Obama. On her trip to China, for example, she played down human rights concerns, saying she did not want them to interfere with priorities like climate change and the economy.
That cost her with human-rights groups: Amnesty International said it was shocked by what it viewed as her backsliding. But it helped her with the White House. She laid the groundwork for Mr. Obama’s meeting with Mr. Hu on Wednesday, these officials said.
At home, Mrs. Clinton has no shortage of access to Mr. Obama. In addition to their regular weekly meeting on Thursday afternoons, aides say, she sees him several times a week at the White House.
When Mrs. Clinton travels, there are always reminders that she is no ordinary secretary of state. On her flight here from The Hague, a large bouquet of Dutch tulips occupied a seat in the press section, which was empty because most members of the traveling press corps had opted to fly home.
A gift of the Dutch foreign minister, they were Hillary Clinton tulips, a variety that was especially cultivated and named for her in 1994, when she was first lady. (Barbara Bush also has her own.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/world/europe/02diplo.html?ref=world