Clinton to Outline Vision for Reinvigorated State

Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton marches into her Senate confirmation hearings today armed with sweeping plans to retake the ground State lost to the Defense department under President Bush, the Wall Street Journal reports. Clinton will advocate using “smart power,” a wide variety of economic and social diplomatic methods, rather than relying on “hard power,” or force.

Clinton wants more State involvement in US and global economic policy, and she'll likely push arms-control measures and a plan to catalog and secure nuclear material. She’ll probably be grilled on her husband’s foundation and potential conflicts of interest; but she can assuage such issues by asserting that she’s pushing Barack Obama’s diplomatic “vision,” the Journal notes.
(More Hillary Clinton stories.)