{UAH} ABEDIN'S SPLIT WITH WEINER ENDS ONE POLITICAL DRAMA AS ANOTHER UNFOLDS

Huma Abedin's split with Weiner ends one political drama as another unfolds

The private life of Hillary Clinton’s right-hand woman is making headlines today – but her greatest role may be alongside a future president

 Hillary Clinton has described Huma Abedin as ‘like a second daughter’. Photograph: Andrew Theodorakis/Getty Images

Dan Roberts in Washington

 

Monday 29 August 2016 20.00 BSTLast modified on Monday 29 August 201621.44 BST

Huma Abedin has been the reluctant star of two political psychodramas in the past year.

The first – involving painfully public strains in her marriage to Anthony Weiner, the former New York congressman – ended, perhaps predictably, on Monday with news that she had decided to separate from him following yet another sexting scandal.

Huma Abedin separates from Anthony Weiner after latest sexting scandal

 

Read more

But the second – Abedin’s emerging role as a central figure in the likely return ofHillary Clinton to the White House – may be only just beginning and remains of far greater public interest.

Just how crucial this 40-year-old campaign aide is to the presidential project became clear last July when emails revealed the inner workings of Clinton’s hectic life as secretary of state.

Then serving as deputy chief of staff to the secretary, Abedin appeared frequently in the email traffic, as a gatekeeper, personal assistant and professional confidante so close that Clinton said she was “like a second daughter”.

Initially, the tranches of emails painted Clinton’s right-hand woman in a flattering, but somewhat subdued, light: advising her boss on how to operate a secure fax machine and suggesting when it was time to take a nap.

But more recent batches underlined how far Abedin has come since this George Washington University student started out as intern working for the then first lady in the East Wing of an earlier Clinton White House.

In these latest emails, it has become clear that this loyal aide has become a key broker in the Clinton’s powerful nexus of international connections: dealing witheverything from requests to link U2 with the International Space Station to seeking a visa for a disgraced Wolverhampton Wanderers football player.

Both these more lurid requests for political favours were wisely squashed by Abedin, and her discretion and sound political judgment has led to a senior role in the 2016 campaign, of which she is vice-chairwoman.

But it is her constant access to the candidate, not the nominal job title, that makes this such an influential role. In the fast-moving and insular bubble of campaign travel, Abedin can be seen constantly by Clinton’s side – she is often the last person Clinton talks to before going onstage and the first to congratulate the presidential nominee on the way back in.

 An idiot husband, a footballing felon: but Huma Abedin rises above it all

Peter Bradshaw

 

Read more

The close ties to such a controversial figure have made her a lightning rod for political attacks. It is perhaps no accident that Trump’s aggressive first reaction to the news of her separation from Weiner was to question whether their relationship posed a security risk. Some of his supporters have been blunter still in claiming that Abedin’s Muslim faith and upbringing in Saudi Arabia were somehow suspect.

But the close support and loyalty of the Clinton family may also help their young protege deal with the brickbats and barbs that come the way of the powerful. Both highly successful women already share the experience of overcoming public marital infidelity.

In a fly-on-the-wall documentary of Weiner’s failed run for New York mayor – a bid destroyed by the exposure of his “sexting” relationships with other women – Abedin emerges as a stoic and sympathetic character. “This is like living a nightmare,” she says to camera at one point.

Her decision to finally cut him loose may come later than many observers of the marriage imagined, but it should finally free one of Washington’s brightest up-and-coming political stars to emerge as a public figure in her own right.

 

 

EM

On the 49^th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika machafuko"