Seeking a frank evaluation of Argentina's president, the office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires late last year to delve into her psyche.
"How is Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner managing her nerves and anxiety?" asked a cable dated Dec. 31, 2009, and signed "CLINTON" in all capital letters.
The cable, sent at 2:55 p.m. on New Year's Eve, and originating in the department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, asked a series of other probing questions as part of what it said was an attempt by her office to understand "leadership dynamics" between Kirchner and her husband, former President Nestor Kirchner.
"How does stress affect her behavior toward advisors and/or her decision making?" the cable continued. "What steps does Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner or her advisers/handlers, take in helping her deal with stress? Is she taking any medications?"
Delving into the personalities of foreign counterparts may be integral to modern diplomatic give-and-take. But the bluntly worded cable asking about the Argentine leader's "nerves" and "emotions" may further test up-and-down relations between Washington and Buenos Aires. The cable suggests that Washington saw Kirchner and her husband as perhaps prone to emotional instability.
The cable was one of several related to Argentina released in the latest batch of U.S. diplomatic traffic made public this week by WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing website that publishes sensitive government documents.
Uhh...what did we miss? What did Clinton do wrong? What is the purpose of a State Department and its embassies but for feeling the pulse of other nations and their respective leaders so that we can leverage this knowledge to achieve what is in our national best interests?
A fair reading of this article doesn't indicate that there was any secretive or clandestine operations that were requested to be put into motion to glean this information, rather a dialing up of well-placed sources in which to tap.
Of course, the ego-maniacal tool at the center of all this wants her to resign because of this alleged transgression. Oft times, you don't need to know a whole lot about an issue, rather who's taking what side.
During the Democratic primary in '08, we figured that domestically-speaking, Clinton and Obama were basically a wash as they would both be pursuing identical statist agendas. It was on foreign policy, however, we believed Clinton had a much more sober outlook and a firmer grasp of how things really operated globally than the pure naivete' promised and delivered by Obama.
Don't back down, Secretary Clinton, BwD has got your back!