You can tell how damaging the remarks made by Hillary Clinton at Georgetown University Wednesday are by the total blackout they have received from the mainstream media.  Here is Google’s listing of the keywords "Hillary+empathize" revealing that only conservative media have found her doctrine newsworthy.

The former secretary of state, reading from notes (this was no slip of the tongue), expressed some thoughts that will not go down well with the electorate when they consider who ought to be the next commander in chief.  The video is embedded below, and Daniel Halper of the Weekly Standard provides a summary:

"This is what we call smart power," Clinton said to a small audience at Georgetown. "Using every possible tool and partner to advance peace and security. Leaving no one on the sidelines. Showing respect even for one's enemies. Trying to understand, in so far as psychologically possible, empathize with their perspective and point of view. Helping to define the problems, determine the solutions. That is what we believe in the 21st century will change -- change the prospects for peace."

I think Mrs. Clinton was trying to do some damage control on the standing joke that "smart diplomacy" has become in the wake of the chaos sown by her tenure as SecState.  She was at Georgetown, home of th School of Foreign Srvice, after all, attempting to add some sophistication.  But this is an amazingly tin-eared thing to say, and it ought to discredit her as a politician, much less a diplomat.  It is a vulgarization of some useful advice on how to deal with adversaries, getting inside their heads, avoiding underestimation, and other commonsensical notions about fighting smart.  But the blanket way she went about this, in effect calling on us to respect and empathize with the beheaders of ISIS and the kidnappers of Boko Haram, is just plain clumsy.

I have to wonder if the medical problems Mrs. Clinton suffered earlier have affected her mind.  Seriously, I don’t mean this as a slam; I am at a loss to understand how she could have come to the conclusion that it would be a good thing to say something like this in a very public forum.

The MSM can bury this all they like.  It won’t go away, and it will be available for any GOP opponent, or even for a Democrat primary opponent (Jim Webb comes to mind).  Imagine the clips of this cut with images of beheadings.

Update: Carol Brown adds:

If only we could go back in time and offer our respect, our understanding, and our empathy to Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and all the rest, things could have turned out differently. Oh what fools we were to label any of them as enemies or as evil. And how outrageous that we dared put up a fight.

But that’s all in the past.

Now it’s the 21^st century and we have a chance to finally get it right by using “smart power.” The time has come when we can take the culmination of decades of brainwashing, politically correct thinking, multiculturalism, moral equivalence, and even common core math (because, hey, even 2 plus 2 doesn’t have to equal 4 anymore as long as you can explain your answer) and apply it to foreign policy. Or anything else, for that matter. Now we can, and apparently should, indulge evil in the world. According to progressives, from there all good things will flow.

Sadly, the view Clinton expressed has become deeply rooted in our society. The sickness that is The Left has taken hold and is evident just about everywhere, in big ways a small – all cut from the same cloth of sheer madness. Here are a few examples that echo Clinton’s sentiments:

Georgetown University law professor Paul Butler claimed Officer Wilson only saw Michael Brown as a threat and failed to see him as a human being. Ah! So there you go. One must understand and respect their assailant because that would truly be “smart power.”