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Mixed Response To Secretary Clinton's Night Out In Colombia

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dances with members of her delegation during a break from the Americas Summit in Cartagena, Colombia, on Sunday.
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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dances with members of her delegation during a break from the Americas Summit in Cartagena, Colombia, on Sunday.

Photos of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dancing and swigging a beer in a Cartagena, Colombia, pub have gotten her more attention than she might have wanted.

The pictures, showing the nation's top diplomat engaged in merrymaking at Cartagena's Cafe Havana prompted the headline "Swillery" from the New York Post, while TMZ tweeted "Secretary of PARTYING".

In London, The Telegraph even questioned whether the photos spoke to her fitness as America's top diplomat. After the conservative paper noted that the "overwhelmingly liberal U.S. media" were treating the story as just a bit of fun, its Washington-based foreign affairs analyst, Nile Gardiner said he suspected "that a lot of US taxpayers will see it differently – as a senior government official having a jolly time on an official overseas junket at taxpayers' expense."

According to The Post:

[Clinton] and her entourage took over its last remaining table. Clinton quickly proved she's just a regular gal when it comes to drinking — she eschewed a glass and sucked down her Aguila pilsner cerveza straight from the bottle.

In all, the group ordered a dozen beers, two glasses of whiskey and bottles of water.

Clinton's soiree apparently lasted for all of about a half hour.

ABC News quoted Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush and current CNN analyst, as saying the 'Swillary' headline, in particular, was "brutally unfair."

"She drank a beer at a summit meeting event. So what?," Fleischer says.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Scott Neuman is a reporter and editor, working mainly on breaking news for NPR's digital and radio platforms.
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