When the president travels out of country, his secretary of state customarily follows.
Not so with Hillary Clinton.
More and more, President Obama is ditching his top diplomat when he travels abroad. By the time Obama returns from Ghana on Sunday, the last stop on his latest three-country tour, he will have visited nine countries without Clinton.
That's highly unusual for a new secretary of state. Though Clinton has accompanied Obama on several key international visits this year, including Egypt and Trinidad and Tobago, Obama has spent far more time than his predecessors without his foreign policy point person.
Some analysts say this could be a product of Obama's acute interest in diplomacy and international affairs, or perhaps his wariness to promote on the world stage a former rival whose star power could detract from his.
But they wonder whether Clinton, who as first lady traveled the world, is being used to her fullest potential at a time when crises are flaring all over the globe.
"Whenever the president is on foreign travel, it's typical that the secretary of state would travel with the president," said a former top State Department official in the Bush administration. "It seems that (Clinton has) had a bit lower profile over the past couple months as opposed to when she entered office."
The former official said Clinton entered the post with the "widest public recognition" of any secretary of state, but that she's since drifted more into the background. - FOX News Story
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