Can't really argue with that.

Does not show in her schedules.  

For those who can't watch the video, here is an article

Mr. Ahern called Mrs. Clinton "hugely helpful" in the process both as first lady and as a U.S. senator, and suggested some of the criticism of her are unfair.

He said the Clintons made three visits to the nation and that Mrs. Clinton continued to be engaged ever since.

"Any fair observation would find that both Hillary and Bill Clinton made peace in Ireland a priority while they were in the White House and after," he said.

Well, he acknowledged that Obama acknowledged that Clinton did play a part, but nevertheless, when foreign governments (I should say especially US allies) start weighing in - if only to set the record straight - it's worth noting.  This is the second foreign government to weigh in on something in this campaign, and I wonder what that conversation between Ahern and Obama was like.

God bless the Irish and God bless Bertie Ahern.

Great video!

I hope you are cross-posting this far and wide!

It's politics.  Politicians supporting other politicians isn't objective evidence of anything.

Thanks for playing, tho

Who said her experience in this process didn't amount to more than tea at the ambassador's office?  Hmmm..

Great, highly rec'd.  

She hyped her involvement.  http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/a rchives/2008/03/clinton_a_wee_bit_silly. php

This is completely ridiculous!  I'm Irish and an active member of Bertie Ahern's political party.  Bertie was placed in a very difficult personal position as he is undoubtedly good friends with Bill Clinton and no-one doubts Bill's pivotal contribution to the N. Ireland peace process.

Let me say it clearly and without ambiguity:  The Good Friday Agreement was the work of Fmr. Senator George Mitchell, Prime Minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.  They were obviously assisted by the warring parties themselves.  Hillary Clinton had no hand, act or part to play in negotiating or implementing the Good Friday Agreement.  For her to even insinuate such a link is downright laughable and completely farcical.

That is not to say that Hillary Clinton is a great friend of Ireland.  She has given time to Irish politicians from both sides of the border and has done her bit to sustain peace, but she did not create it.

Imagine the furore had Bertie Ahern said what I outlined above: he'd have been accused of supporting BHO just as he is accused of supporting HRC now.  As I said, he was in a difficult position but he made sure to telephone BHO when he was over in Washington.  There's no doubt that Hillary is better known in Ireland but by no means is she universally supported over on our side of the Atlantic.  If anything, the gender gap is more pronounced over here.  I must admit (somewhat ashamedly) that I guffaw when I bump into a fellow Irish male who supprts HRC.

I'm a fan of Barack Obama, whose ancestors hail from Co. Offaly in the midlands of Ireland.  Indeed, I look forward to the day when he meets as President another Offaly man, Brain Cowen, who is all but certain to succeed Bertie as Taoiseach over the next year or so.

HRC is experienced but she did not deliver peace to Northern Ireland. FULL STOP. (As we say in Ireland!)  

Obama's resume is very thin.
He can only swiftboat Hillary's plentiful accomplishments as a liability and hope noone looks at his.
A Rovian tactic indeed.

Another witness coming forward to attest to Hillary's work in pushing for N.Ireland Peace Accord.
This is from Hillarysbloggers.com.

...................

Hillary's former Chief of Staff and now Chair of a non-profit group called Vital Voices Melanne Verveer,
sent me something she wrote up about Hillary's role in this peace process, as a part of the tribute being pulled together
by Stella O'Leary. Ms. Verveer worked with Hillary for 8 years and I doubt anyone has a deeper understanding of Hillary's role
or her motivations for getting so involved in all this. Nineteen ninety-five was a big year for Hillary, with trips to Beijing
for the UN Women's Conference, and her first trip to Northern Ireland.
Take a look...

   HILLARY AND THE VITAL VOICES OF NORTHERN IRELAND

.... On St. Patrick's Day in 1998, the political leaders of Northern Ireland were invited to the White House. The peace negotiations
that led to the Good Friday Accord were going on at the time and President Clinton was doing his best to encourage the leaders to
continue their efforts. The only leaders who did not have a meeting in the Oval Office were the two representatives of the Northern Ireland
Women's Coalition who were also elected to participate in the peace talks. Realizing their omission, an official on the National Security Council
called me to see if it might be possible for the First Lady to meet briefly with the two Northern Irish women leaders, Monica McWilliams and Pearl Sager.

Hillary agreed and the meeting was anything but brief. Monica and Pearl told the First Lady how important it was for women in
Northern Ireland to be able to participate fully in the social, economic and political life of their society, and they also told
her how difficult it was, how the women were ridiculed, marginalized and even threatened. They pleaded for help in skills development,
leadership training and employment opportunities. That was the birth of Vital Voices Northern Ireland. Minutes after the conclusion of the meeting,
Hillary called me and said, "We really need to bring Vital Voices to Northern Ireland. Do you think we can organize a conference in six months
that would help to build the confidence of the women, bring in experts and programs to develop their skills and provide new opportunities? We really
need to help raise the voices of the women because they are critical to build a peaceful and prosperous Northern Ireland." Vital Voices became
one of the US commitments to the peace process.

That night at the gala St Patrick's Day party in the East Room, Hillary introduced her husband
and paid tribute to the women of Northern Ireland who are the unsung heroes. Her remarks were greeted with thunderous applause...........

Melanne Verveer
Co-founder and Chairman of Vital Voices Global Partnership
Former Chief of Staff to First Lady Hillary Clinton.

http://tinyurl.com/2pfkb6

Its not like Obama has brought peace to anything. He certainly isn't winning praise from foreign leaders because he doesn't know any and they don't know him.

Just come off as silly and desperate.  Of course the woman has experience. She has been at the center of the US government for at 16 years. She is a tireless worker. She has been in the public eye. People know what they have seen. There are plenty of things to fault Clinton on, but lack of experience is not one of them.

BUSTED is the right word for it. Now the Prime Minister is saying that he spoke to Obama and that he admitted he knew how important Hillary's contributions were?

Holy Sheep Shit!

The word decisive means that without HRC's contribution, peace would not have been achieved.  That's frankly fanciful...indeed, the claim that President Reagan single-handedly destroyed Communism is one hundred times more pertinent!

HRC is a friend to Ireland...BHO can be just as friendly when the time comes.  I'm sure that President BHO will be hailed as a rock-star if and when he comes to Ireland!

Sorry about the last post...I was merely repeating earlier comments that I thought had not been recorded.

Here's an interesting article from The Irish Times, noting how the power of the Irish-American lobby has waned in  recent years.

Analysis: The ties that bind Ireland and the US are not being reinforced by a new wave of immigrants, writes Mark Hennessey .

IN THE years before the Famine, and after, the Irish came to Pennsylvania, struggled and endured in the mines and steelworks and eventually overcame obstacles thrown in their way.

The memory is etched deep into their descendants' consciousness, where family, faith, tradition, community and a deep sense of being Irish-American are held dear.

Last Sunday, 1,400 Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick men came together in Scranton, as their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers have done for more than 100 years. The top table reflected the path taken by so many Irish-Americans: filled as it was by priests, monsignors, bishops, judges and politicians, including the Governor of Maryland, Martin O'Malley.

Greeting Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Democrat Bob Casey, himself a member of the Friendly Sons, remembered "struggle and triumph, and an abiding allegiance to faith and family. And we have an enduring belief - and we have had to believe this over many generations - in the promise of tomorrow," said the first-time senator.

Hundreds return home for the annual dinner, which has been addressed by many significant Irish and Irish-American figures during its history, including Robert Kennedy in 1964.

To the eyes of many in Ireland today, the all-male black tie gathering, with beer bought by the case, would no doubt be seen as a cross between Boys Town and The Quiet Man; an image in search of a cliché.

Yet, the sense of togetherness they clearly share; the intensity of feeling for their heritage, and, to an extent, for an ancestral homeland often unseen by many of them is real, and moving.

Such feeling, reflected in a thousand towns and cities around the US, has given the Irish a political voice in the White House and Capitol Hill, which other nations would beg to match.

And, though eaten bread is quickly forgotten, the role of Irish-Americans - such as Ted Kennedy, Richie Neal, and a host of others - on Northern Ireland is deserving of a place of honour.

Today, however, the ties that bind Ireland and the United States are not being reinforced by new generations of Irish emigrants. Just 4,000 Irish have secured Green Cards in recent years; the numbers winning lottery visas can be measured in the dozens.

The numbers of "undocumented Irish", as they are called, could be anywhere between 3,000 and 50,000, though the Government believes the figure to be somewhere in the middle.

Speaking in Washington, Ahern was unusually blunt: the immigration lobby who argue that an amnesty for "the undocumented" or a special deal for the Irish can be won are being "dishonest".

For Ahern, these are strong words, and there is now clearly some rancour or, at the very least, frustration in the relationship between him and those representing the undocumented.

Ahern's remarks were not left for long without a clearly annoyed response by Niall O'Dowd, the editor of the Irish Voice newspaper and head of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform.

In Ahern's view, a special immigration deal for Ireland cannot be secured; nor can an amnesty be secured for those living illegally in the US while they remain there. Instead, he is investing his short-term hopes in a two-way visa deal, which would offer 18- to 30-year-olds the right to live and work for 15/18 months or so in each other's countries.

The ambition is not to win visas so that people can build permanent lives in the US but, rather, that the river of connection between the two countries can be replenished by shorter-term visitations.

If secured, such a deal would offer perhaps as many as 5,000 "super-J1" visas from the off, with more later on, and holders would be entitled to renew them once, thus offering three years in the US.

The immigration lobby disagrees. And it argues that it has been right twice before when the Donnelly and Morrison visa regimes were won without early support from the Irish Government.

Twenty years on from those successes, however, the landscape has changed. Twelve million "illegals" now live in the US; the attitude to foreigners has hardened; and the economy is in trouble.

The advantage of Ahern's "super J1" proposal is that it can be agreed with the White House - though not perhaps while George Bush remains in it - and does not need congressional sanction.

Either way, nothing much is expected to happen until Bush departs, if only because any concession to the Irish - however small - would infuriate the now much more electorally important Hispanics.

Irish-Americans' votes for the White House will not turn on immigration; the pressure from below from Irish-born illegals that might make them do so is not there in the numbers of 20 years ago.

The Bronx and Woodside in New York, and a hundred other districts, are no longer filled with the accents of 32 counties as they were once. Where once there were 17 GAA clubs there are now three.

"How do you tell a Salvadorean kid serving in Iraq - and we have many of them who are - that we won't legalise his parents, but that we will offer a deal to the Irish," said one Republican this week.

Though he may well be right, Ahern, in some ways, is adopting a more conservative approach than is held by some Irish-Americans who are infuriated with the tactics and tone of O'Dowd and the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform.

While supportive of the short-term visa plan, some in this camp believe that full visas can be secured next year once the White House's new occupant is known - though not in numbers on a scale with the past.

Republican presidential contender John McCain favoured a radical Bill to tackle immigration: and nearly destroyed his hopes for the White House in the process.

Yet, Irish-Americans supporting McCain believe that if he is elected he will try again, and that similar moves would be made by Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

However, the economy will decide all. Problems in Ireland will make the US a more attractive option for those in search of change. Problems in the US will make it more difficult to let anyone in.

Mark Hennessy is a political correspondent with The Irish Times and travelled to the US this week with the Taoiseach

Thnak you for this diary.  I'd like to add that the Irish have also expressed gratitude that Hillary actually took time out from her campaign to meet with them earlier this year.

From a recent Irish Times article referring to Irish Heads of State meeting with Hillary:

"When they visited Washington last year, First Minister Ian Paisley said he APPRECIATED THE SACRIFICE MRS. CLINTON WAS MAKING IN TAKING TIME OUT OF HER PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, which was already intense a few weeks ahead of the Iowa caucuses."

Compare that to the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on European Affairs. You know who that is.  When asked why he hasn't convened any oversight meetings (none, zero, zip), he said he was too busy running for president.  

BO can only attack HRC's accomplishments.

BO has a very thin resume.
He wanted the prestige of the position but
no paper trails.

How Is That?

BO is the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on European Affairs.

No Hearings todate.
nothing to see here people, move along.

Obamabots reduce to attacking HRC's accomplishments.

OK, I watched the video. The PM says that she was helpful. Cool.

But can we please stop saying that Obama "lied" about this?

Obama had previously questioned the size of Clinton's role, but he never said she played no role at all. His team simply suggested that she might be overstating her foreign policy experience. In some cases it appears she has (e.g., Kosovo) and in others it now seems clear she hasn't (e.g., Northern Ireland).

In other words, this is not a "lie". You can say Obama was wrong, or you can say he was trying to minimize, but you can't really categorize this as a lie.

Fair?