They may or may not have hugged, but US President Barack Obama and former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton rubbed shoulders on Wednesday at a party on Martha’s Vineyard after Clinton criticized the foreign policy vision of her one-time boss.
Clinton called Obama on Tuesday to say that her comments to Jeffrey Goldberg, a writer for the Atlantic magazine, were not meant as an attack on the president.
In the Atlantic interview, published on Sunday, Clinton described US policy in Syria as a failure and that what she termed as Obama’s doctrine of “‘don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle” for a great nation.
Her spokesman said Clinton, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, looked forward to “hugging it out” with Obama when the two attended the Wednesday evening party given by mutual friend and Washington powerbroker Vernon Jordan on the Massachusetts island, where the Obamas are vacationing.
Clinton was on the island to promote her book, Hard Choices, a memoir of her time as the nation’s top diplomat under Obama, who picked her for the post after besting her for the US Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2008.
Speaking to reporters before signing books on Wednesday afternoon, Clinton said she was “absolutely” looking forward to hugging it out with the president and said they both were committed to US values and security interests.
“We have disagreements as any partners and friends, as we are, might very well have,” Clinton said.
“But I’m proud ... that I served with him and for him, and I’m looking forward to seeing him tonight,” she said.
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