CNN - Hillary Clinton pummels Obama foreign policy

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(CNN) -- Yes, Hillary Clinton is running for president, and she is running away from President Barack Obama's record on foreign policy.

That's a very clear message from the interview just published in The Atlantic in which she drew sharp distinctions between her view of America's role in the world and those of the President, while also expressing significant disagreements with him over the right approach to ongoing crises in the Middle East.

In a dramatic dismissal of the Obama administration's self-described foreign policy doctrine of "Don't do stupid stuff," Clinton declared, "Great nations need organizing principles and 'Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle."

Clinton clothed her criticism in respect of her "incredibly intelligent" former boss, but Obama may have clenched his jaw with irritation when he read the polite pummeling from his former secretary of state. Clinton promptly explained that even she didn't think that Obama really meant that is his foreign policy doctrine. (The name Obama used to describe the policy, incidentally, uses a four-letter word instead of "stuff.") She claimed that the catchy phrase was an effort to convey to Americans wary of U.S. misadventures in faraway lands that he was not about to do "something crazy."

Still, Clinton articulated a vision for a much more assertive U.S. role in the world, one that contrasts sharply with Obama's. In doing so, she brandished a lacerating analysis of the administration's foreign policy. Most troubling for Obama was her intimation that some of the most difficult, dangerous and deadly problems raging in the Middle East today might have been avoided if Obama had acted more promptly and less hesitantly.

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