About Clinton’s Rumble (and Grumble) in the Jungle

By Jeffrey Gettleman

It was hot. She was tired. The auditorium was packed and it had been a long day in Africa.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was on stage in Kinshasa, Congo’s shabby capital, in an auditorium packed with Congolese students. She had started that day, Monday, in Angola, probably one of the hardest countries on the continent to work in, where the economy has been so shattered by war that a club sandwich costs $33. She left Angola in a rush, flew an hour to Kinshasa, toured a hospital upon landing and then headed straight to the town hall meeting with the students, all without a stop.

The first few questions were soft, right up her alley, about human rights and the environment. But then they got a little edgy. Congolese can be suspicious people. Several students pushed Mrs. Clinton on why Congo, whose first prime minister was killed with C.I.A. help, should now trust the United States. Maybe it was the fatigue. Or the heat. But her answers became increasingly prickly.

And then came THE QUESTION, from a young man in a suit:

“Thank you. Mrs. Clinton, we’ve all heard about the Chinese contracts in this country. The interference is from the World Bank against this contract. What does Mr. Clinton think through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton and what does Mr. Mutombo think on this situation? Thank you very much.”

Mrs. Clinton’s answer is now the Number One sound bite from her trip. Her whole 7-nation Africa tour, which had quite serious intentions, like combating Congo’s appalling rape epidemic and empowering women in developing countries, and upping her personal profile within the Obama administration, may be reduced to this:

“Wait, you want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not secretary of state, I am. If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband.’’

The quote quickly found a prominent home on cable television and in tabloid newspapers, feeding speculation about rivalry between the Clintons and Mrs. Clinton’s happiness with her job. The last time Kinshasa got this much ink was when Muhammad Ali fought George Foreman here, in 1974, in the so-called Rumble in the Jungle (Ali pulled off an upset).

So think of this brief flash of anger, annoyance, un-diplospeak, whatever you want to call it, as Rumble in the Jungle 2.

That night, Mrs. Clinton’s aides told the reporters traveling with her that there may have been a mistranslation. (If Mrs. Clinton speaks French, she doesn’t show it, because she used the translation earphones throughout her Congo visit.) Later, her aides released the transcript of the question, as it had been translated from French to English, showing that the reference was to “Mr. Clinton.”presented above. Further inspection of the audio recording of the event indicated that the translation was fine; the student had indeed said “Mr. Clinton.’’

But it’s not clear if the student meant what he said. Afterwards, he came up to her at the front of the auditorium and apologized, saying he meant to ask what Mr. Obama thinks. Mrs. Clinton’s aides suggested that he had simply misspoken because he was nervous.

By Tuesday, a State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley, was explaining why Mrs. Clinton reacted as she did to the question.

“An abiding theme that she has in her trip to Africa is empowering women,” Mr. Crowley said. “As the question was posed to her, it was posed in a way that said I want to get the views of two men, but not you, the Secretary of State.”

Maybe he was nervous, as the State Department implied the next day, when they had to do damage control.

Either way, the hubbub seemed to drain Mrs. Clinton. Until then, she had seemed impervious to the jet lag that was stalking her entourage from the moment they plopped down in Kenya. But on Tuesday, especially after meeting Congolese rape victims and touring a squalid refugee camp where thousands of people lived cheek by sunken cheek, Mrs. Clinton seemed drained. She said a few words on the plane ride back from Congo. But her language wasn’t as emotional or urgent as it had been.

No matter the issues she was talking about – good governance, ending Africa’s wars, lifting women up from their especially lowly position in a place like Congo. The coverage of this trip was not about the issues. It was all about her, her, her.