Hillary's Three Unfortunate Outbursts

Poor Hillary Clinton!

(GNN) - The US Secretary of State lost her cool at a meeting in Kinshasa, Congo, as she was asked what her husband thought about Chinese aid to the troubled nation.

She is in the midst of a grueling trip to Africa, bringing a message of US commitment to the unhappiest corners of an unhappy continent. Yet it is now likely to be remembered, if at all, for a profane answer to a question involving her husband – a question that almost certainly was mis-relayed to her in translation.

Yesterday she became the first Secretary of State to visit Goma, ground zero of the civil war that for a decade has ravaged eastern Congo. This visit will probably be eclipsed by her reply at a town hall meeting on Monday with university students in the capital Kinshasa.

Unfortunately the translator messed up the question, originally in French. What did President Obama think of concerns about massive Chinese aid to the country, he apparently meant to ask. Alas the President in question was identified not as Mr Obama, but her own spouse, Bill Clinton.

"You want me to tell you what my husband thinks?" she replied, glaring with anger. "My husband is not the g*dd*m Secretary of State, I am. If you want my opinion, you little shit, I will tell you my f**king opinion. I am not going to be channeling my f**cking husband."

The room fell to silence as Clinton gestured to security offices to escort the translator from the gathering. Afterward, aides said that the student had apologized to Mrs Clinton, explaining that he had intended to inquire what President Obama thought about the China's loan offer. But the damage had been done.

Just three hours later, visiting a religious snake sanctuary in Angola, Mrs Clinton struggled as she strolled with a large poisonous serpent when an observer, in broken English, inquired whether the Secretary of State was having difficulty walking with an asp that size. Yet again, Clinton glared and this time slapped the young man with the back of her ample hand.

Finally, that evening at a State dinner in Johannesburg, South Africa, Mrs Clinton's hands were pried from around the neck of the Chinese Minister Xait Juong, when Xait, using a substandard Soviet-era translation book, and intending to ask if Clinton would care to join in a spirited limbo dance, haltingly requested if she would care to "boogie under my wiggle stick."

All in all, it was an unfortunate series of events. The misogynists who love to cast powerful women as thin-skinned and irrational will never let her forget it.