Secretary of State Clinton Wearies of Public Service, to Step Down Soon (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | According to the Envoy, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has indicated she will not serve in a potential second Barack Obama term. She has announced she is weary of the "high wire" of American politics.

Clinton has been involved in national politics in one capacity or another for 20 years. As first lady she was involved in an early attempt to create a national health care regime, an attempt that collapsed shortly before the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress led by Newt Gingrich.

In 2000 Clinton was elected to the Senate from New York despite the fact she had not lived in the state. She was re-elected in 2006. Clinton was a presidential candidate in 2008 and was widely expected to win the Democratic nomination in a walk. But she and her supporters did not figure into their considerations a then young, unknown senator named Barack Obama, who won the nomination and the general election. President Obama named Clinton his Secretary of State, an office she now holds.

Clinton's tenure as first lady during the Bill Clinton administration was, to say the least, fraught with controversy. Chief among the scandals Clinton had to deal with was the Whitewater affair, according to the Washington Post. Whitewater was a shady land deal in Arkansas that Clinton was involved in. While Clinton friends, including Jim and Susan McDougal, went to jail over Whitewater-related convictions, Clinton was able to escape legal if not political trouble.

Clinton also played the put-upon wife during her husband's various sex scandals, especially the Monica Lewinsky affair. Her decision to stand by her husband rewarded her with her separate political career, starting with her election to the Senate. According to Govtrack, Sen. Clinton sponsored 363 bills from 2001 to 2009, 11 of which were passed into law.

Clinton's run for the presidency was seen as an attempt to create a Clinton Restoration after the eight-year administration of George W. Bush. However, the younger, more novel Obama came from nowhere and took the nomination from her. She has had to content herself with being Secretary of State as the capstone of her career in public service.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120131/pl_ac/10909105_secretary_of_state_clinton_wearies_of_public_service_to_step_down_soon

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