I totally disagree with your assessment Secreteary Clinton. No Secretary of State has had to deal with anything like those as the diverse and simultaneous problems and issues for the past for four years.

I suggest your comments are written ala radio talk show hosts to gin up responses and further you own career by causing cintroversy and thereby creating a name in this stupid media world.

To respond futher would only be awaste of time in terms of her relative superior performance and dedication to country that no other State Secretary has demonstrated. Perhaps some others over the past decades have had superior performance on a few issues of the day, but the number and intensity of our foreign issues occurring simultaneously with which Secretary Clinton has had to deal during the past four years is evidence of an unequaled achievement compared to her predecessors.

'Nuff said for now.

The events in Syria are none of our business as long as it's a Syrian internal affair.  Should England and France moved to influence or "decide" the American Civil War ?

Ditto the current events in Egypt.  That is their business.

If cooler or smarter heads had prevailed we would not have been in Iraq and would have been out of Afghanistan long ago.

Egroege proved Jeff's point brilliantly.  He rebuts Jeff, but offers no single accomplishment that would serve as the basis for his praise of Hillary.  But this approach is consistent with the fawning treatemtn of the whole Obama adminstration since day one.  While the prime movers are given royal, VIP, rock star applauds from their adoring fans, there is really no accomplishments that can be used to justify such high praise.

Obamacare?  How's that working out?  Gays in the military?  Sure.  The ecomomy?  Please.  Hillary performs like a competent player, but there are no accomplishments one could name.  And there are numerous missteps in our foreign policy that her detractors can name-Benghazi, the Iran uprising of 2009, the gif to the British Queen of a DVD of Barack Obama's greatest hits (true story-they gave ger a DVD of the messiah's speeches!!), the Russia "reset" debacle...

Sure, Hillary and the president will always be adored as celebrities.  But as far as actual, tangible successes?  Nothing to see here, folks.

Egroege:

Unlike Mr. Jacoby, who listed specifically where she fell short, and where previous Secretaries of State succeeded, you take the path of her sycophants and spout general personal opinions of her supposed greatness without citing any specific accomplishments.  If she was supposedly such a great Secretary of State, why don't you list some of the many, many great things she did.

I suspect you can not because there are few, if any.  She was OK.  The best you can say is that she did not mess it up . . . oops, I forgot Benghazi, where she did not have her associates backs, and was clearly either lackadaisical, ignorant, or both.

Next time you post, try less fawning and more data.

Nothing like kicking someone on their way out the door. Clinton spent the last four years undoing the damage that Condoleezza Rice managed to inflict during her tenure. 

Jeff as usual comes across as empty headed as a Chris Mathews or a Bill O'Reilly.  He is simply incapable of writing a piece without falling into his own political camp.  I know, opinon writers are opinionated.  But there is a difference between an objective opinion and a piece of propaganda.

Is Hillary the "greatest SOS", of course not.  She did however repair much of the overseas damage done to America's image over the previous four years.  Naturally those on the right preferred the macho image of an America projecting power across the world, but many of us in the middle prefer a lower profile to America the cop on the beat. 

As to Jacoby's inability to avoid the Benghazi flap.  What can one expect form someone who is in need of an intellectual prop.  Benghazi may have been a lot of things but it certainly wasn't one of Hillary's mistakes.  There was and is plenty of blame to go around on that one, including the Ambassador himself.  The joyous glee with which the right jumped on that one is as embarrassing as when the left joyously leapt upon Bush's blunders in Iraq.  A rather pathetic usage of American deaths by both parties.

But I expect little from Jeff and usually get it.  Instead I get a warm-up for the politics of destruction in preperation for 2016.  Jeff just can't wait to get going again.

One must assume that Mr Jacoby picked the photo of Secretary Clinton that tops his latest "column". He probably thought that employing a very unflattering image of her would support his "thesis", while distracting from his poor workmanship. Petty.  With a little luck, he may be employed somewhere where he can take issue with her presidency. Hopefully not at the BG.

The condescendingly delivered unction (those cited and those hereinto) of the next historically momentous successor to the once great Office cannot be ignored. To this point, she can't be beat. More dead American bodies on American soil across the globe though? Why get her hands dirty in that kitchen and well, to liberally paraphrase, "at this point, that could make a difference".

OMG!  Stop the Presses!  Jeff Jacoby isn't impressed by Hillary Clinton.  I'm shocked!  And in other news...Today is Sunday which will be followed by Monday.

Wow, all our issues with Russia Are the result of a mislabeled button. Who knew. Thanks once again Jeff for your incredible insight and ability to take a complex issue and simplify it. Have you tried the comedy channel?

If Mr. Jacoby is holding up Henry Kissinger, the Butcher of Cambodia, as a model Secretary of State, then his view of the US and the World is truly warped.

Wow, Jeff. It's hard to take your opinions seriously when you can't even get basic facts straight. You may not like the Muslim Brotherhood, but they were democratically elected by the Egyptian people. What would you have Secretary Clinton do about it? Invade them because we don't like their choice? It's funny how you conservatives are only in favor of democracy when your guy wins. Hypocrite.

While loudly singing that old (Groucho) Marxist tune, "Whatever it is I'm Against It!", our boy Jeffy dishes up yet another knee-jerk polemic against anything that does not fit his narrow-minded radical-right wing ultra-conservative little box of cliches.  Good Grief, Jeffy!  If the Nazz himself were to climb down from his Cross and make an appearance, you would trash him as a Liberal Hippy for his beard, long hair and sandals, and his Socialist doctrine of peace, love and forgiveness.  Hillary did a way better than average job, easily outclassing her immediate predecessors from the Halls of Dubyah. 

Hillary did an excellent job, but she will hardly be remembered as a great SoS.  You need historic events to create that kind of opportunity and what Hillary had to deal with was relatively small potatoes.

Really, Boston Globe?  Is there not ONE credible, THINKING conservative you could get instead of the endless drivel dished up by Jeff Jacoby?  As an exercise in comedy, why don't you assign a topic every week & let readers write their own knee-jerk reaction article as if Jeff Jacoby had written it?  I'm willing to bet the results would be so close as to be hilarious.

"History"  I'm not picking on a dead guy.  The fact is the Ambassador had as much intelligence regarding the situation if not more than most.  He decided to take the trip.  I don't "fault" him for the trip, but he should have been well aware of the lack of security. He probably the felt the reward was worth the risk and he simply underestimated the risk.   No one has asked the question, Should he have taken the trip?"  My guess would be he should not have.  But on a political and public level I think neither the Pres. or the SOS wanted to publicly say what is probably a fact, he shouldn't have gone.  Why?  Simply because they would have given the same knee jerk response that I got.  Luckily for me I can make a probably impolitic but correct statement and not worry about the political consequences.  A position that some of you folks like to ignore.  Sometimes in govt., even when I was in govt.  one has to gray the facts because sometimes folks as the man says, "just can't handle the truth".

I suspect that Jeff has succumbed to a deeper frustration and prosaically loosed his own opinion on us because prior efforts  to stem the Rise of the Democrat in today's America have not only failed, but failed miserablely.  He could only write this column if he had a bias that is strong and lasting.  It is a well-known fact that Clinton came into the position with monumental handicaps inherited from the Bush administration.  Severe handicaps, all of which were American-made.  It took years of careful diplomacy to get our former allies back to a position of good grace, where we even spoke to each other.  We were unilateral vigilantes.  We were isolationists.  She got us back to being internationalists after the Iraq debacle.  She got us back to diplomacy where the State Dept. policy was not secondary to the Defense Dept wishes.  She regained our lost primacy in the world of negotiation.  She even succeeded in getting Russia and China to the bargaining table!  

Beyond that, she recognized the importance of Africa and the challenge it presents to the US.  Will it be militarily-based as it was during Bush?  Or will it be diplomatically and humanitarianly- based to serve everyone's interest and get us out of the business of nation-building and being the world's policeman.  I can't think of a more difficult Sec. of State to defend than Rice.  She was incomptent and in the final analysis, she was incorrect.  Now the latest book by Dick Cheney has her fretting over his version of the truth during Bush.  She comes off looking ill-prepared.  No, this column is not a well-considered opinion; it is the work of a man overcome by years of disappointment, brought to the breaking-point by having all the Democratic stars aligned:  Obama, Affordable Care, Warren, CFPB, binLaden, Clinton, Kerry, -Brown, -Baker, -Tisei, - Weld, -Healy, -Romney, -Cain and you can add and subtract other names as well.  It was just too much for Jeff to bear.

Just more sour grapes from Jacoby. A very poor loser. 

what a shock!! Mr. Jeff's heroes include: (a) the guy, Dulles, who toppled the first Iranian civilian elected leader in the 50s, starting the path that led to today's problems and gleefully assumed the imperial ambitions and duties of European de-colonizers; (b) the guy, Kissinger, who laid waste to southeast Asia and murdered Allende, another elected leader in the 70s; (c) and, are you sitting, George Schultz, another Nixon acolyte.  Mr. Jeff then takes off after Mrs. Clinton.  

Jeff is a hack columnist who, as far as can be seen, has never accomplished anything.  And he has the gall to blame an American first, so long as she is a Democrat, before any consideration of just how chaotic Libya has been.  Oh yeah, and the US, as policeman of the world, is supposed to handle Russia, Syria and every other problem of every other sovereign country.  What ever happened to a conservative Republican view of modest foreign policy??  Well, with Mr. Jeff, it is gone along with genuine fiscal sanity.  Just bash Democrats.  Again, why does the Globe retain this dimwit??  Reprints of old Bill Buckley columns would shed more light than this incoherent trash.

"Kitch"  I never argue with your obsession regarding Islamism.  I find it difficult to become as fanatical regarding Islamists as you do.  In fact in some ways I find your fanaticism as narrow as their fanatacism.  Different viewpoints but same absolutism. 

Sure, Hillary clocked serious miles as Secretary of State.  However, still don't what are this Administration's foreign policy objectives (because they haven't defined them).  Hence I cannot comment on the success of her tenure.

"Kitch" IF the mullahs hang that will be a good thing.  It in and of itself won't solve our ME problems.

OMG! What if Jeffy is actually a comedian, doing a sly satirical parody of the brainless ideologues of the radical right, just like Stephen Colbert?  Everybody chant, " Jeffy! Jeffy! Jeffy! Jeffy!"