I was not only the first woman to become secretary of state, I was the first [U.S.] secretary of state of the 21st century. I was the first secretary of state to own a Web site, to visit Internet cafes, and to make Internet access a part of policy.
One of the things that was really an issue was I did not want to just be a woman secretary of state. I wanted to be a secretary of a state who was a woman, but not just chosen for that particular reason.
You know, we may just be planting seeds for future generations, but that's okay. We can't be deterred from doing things, because we might be laughed at, because somebody might say, "What did you think you'd accomplish by turning your back on the secretary of state," or something like that.
If your selling access to somebody who is a future president or current secretary of state, or if there's an implication that you are, that matters.
Senator McCain is all for John Kerry. Do you know they're buddies? McCain is in favor of Kerry being secretary of state. Somebody the other day suggested, maybe it was just today, a bipartisan compromise and nominate Colin Powell to be secretary of state again. What would be bipartisan about that? He's not a Republican.
The President doesn't just appoint the Secretary of State, he appoints the Secretary of State, and then the Congress votes. And if the Congress approves that person, that person becomes Secretary of State.
If you're working as secretary of state but half of your emails are about your own private business, since when is secretary of state such a leisurely job that half of your time and half of your email are spent on your own private business? There's something really wrong with that picture.
People ask me, "What are you going to do to develop jobs in your state?" Well, that's not my job as a US senator to bring industry to the state. That's the lieutenant governor's job, that's your state senators' and assemblymen's job. That's your secretary of state's job, to make a climate in the state that says, 'Y'all come.'
I would like somebody confident who takes care of his business, is strong, healthy. Somebody that loves their family and treats their friends right - and treats me right.
It's not like I want someone to treat me badly. I want somebody who looks like they could treat me badly, but then really treats me good.
I've behaved badly in my life. I hope I haven't behaved as badly as Dickens! In a way, if you're a woman, you're not in a position to behave as badly, because you don't have the economic power.
I had more problems with the men in our own government, and not because they were male chauvinistic pigs but because they had known me for so long. I might have been a carpool mother and a friend of their wife, and so they'd been to my house for dinner and things like and they thought 'how did she get to be secretary of state when I should be secretary of state?' So that was more of a problem.
Oh, I know: If you're fat, let's not blame you, let's sue McDonalds! Oh, for cryin' out loud, hey, if you smoke, not your fault, it's the tobacco company's fault! Hey, if you shoot somebody, not your fault, let's blame the gun industry!
And then in the FBI report it says that Hillary Clinton can't remember her exit interview from the FBI because of her concussion because she didn't have a memory. But she was acting as secretary of state at the time which means we had a secretary of state who was acting who doesn't have a memory of what she was doing.
People didn't think that a woman could be the Secretary of State, when my name was out there...but then the Arab Ambassadors at the UN said 'We have no problem dealing with Ambassador Albright, and we would have no problem dealing with Secretary Albright.'
I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and - you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows - (know) this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday.