Hillary Clinton's Legacy And Future

Thinking about Hillary Clinton: we're looking to the legacy and future of the outgoing Secretary of State.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is wrapping up this week as Secretary of State. To take a deep breath. Sleep in, she says. And then, who knows?

She is 65. The woman who, in her college graduation speech, called for “a more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating mode of living.” Who would not be Tammy Wynette to her Bill Clinton. A polarizing, “partner” First Lady. A U.S. Senator. A would-be president herself. And then, Madame Secretary.

What is her legacy? And might she still be the country’s first female president?

This hour, On Point: thinking about Hillary Clinton.
-Tom Ashbrook

Joan Walsh, editor-at-large at Salon. Author of "What's the Matter with White People: Why We Long for a Golden Age That Never Was." (@joanwalsh)

Karen Tumulty, national political correspondent for the Washington Post. (@ktumulty)

Jill Dougherty, foreign affairs correspondent for CNN. She interviewed Hillary Clinton on Tuesday. (@cnnjill)

Los Angeles Times "Hillary Rodham Clinton leaves her post as secretary of State next month with a split judgment on her diplomatic career: She's won rave reviews from the American public and the president, but maybe not a prominent place in the diplomatic history books."

USA Today "She's just come from convincing Chinese leaders to free blind dissident Chen Guangcheng. Soon she'll cajole India's leaders to reduce oil imports from Iran. But at the moment, Hillary Rodham Clinton is renewing old friendships in one of the world's poorest nations."

CBS News "Outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is asked some version of the same question in almost every interview - 'Will you run for president in 2016?' But just days before her planned Friday departure from the State Department, Clinton's answers about her future are as inscrutable as ever - denying any concrete plans to run, expressing a need to take a breather, but always stopping short of the ironclad denial that might stop the speculative fury (at least for a while)."