Over the weekend, Mike Huckabee asked Madeleine Albright if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been marginalized in the Obama Administration.
HUCKABEE: From my perspective, it seems that Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, with extraordinary qualifications, has been virtually marginalized outside of the inner circle of foreign policy.
You were in the middle of it. You helped shape it. You were at the forefront of it. So was Condi Rice. Do you feel that there has been some sense in which Joe Biden, George Mitchell, and others have been moved into a position that she should occupy a more prominent role?
ALBRIGHT: I don't agree with you, frankly. I think she very much is in the center. The various envoys are reporting to her, and she is the one that is leading all of this.
I do think that what has happened that is different from the time where I was there, it's almost if we're gonna talk about politics, every county's been heard from here, and it is really necessary in order to get some things done -- to get these envoys into place.
.... I do think that what has happened is there are more and more players within the national security team, so that you do listen to the secretary of treasury, energy, environmental director, because all those issues are interdependent, and that's why the work that President Obama has at the moment is so difficult....
[later]
HUCKABEE: I don't see her on the center of the stage. You were. Other secretaries of states have been. But Hillary has been dispatched to places like Africa when often there were major issues going on in the Middle East, so that's why, I think, that for many of us who are watching this are wondering: Has President Obama appointed her, in order to keep her from being a critic had she remained in the Senate?
Do you think think -- I guess, I can't even honestly ask you to respond to that and give an answer....
ALBRIGHT: [interrupting] ... No, I just don't buy [that].
[Hat tip: Huck's Army]
