After facing a crowd of hecklers live on CNN at Ohio State not to mention the critical notices that followed the secretary of state marched right back onto college campuses Thursday.
She worked smaller audiences at Tennessee State and South Carolina U., which made for a more rational debate on the pros and cons of an Iraq attack.
That's just the way Albright, a former professor of international affairs at Georgetown, likes it. At Tennessee, she stood in front of a map of the Middle East and lectured the students on how to keep Saddam "in his box." Earlier, she told the Today show she would not be deterred by a "few dozen hecklers."
The Clinton administration certainly received a painful lesson in salesmanship Wednesday if only because the town hall meeting protest was undoubtedly viewed by the regime in Baghdad, for whom free speech is nothing short of insanity.
President Clinton put a brave spin on the spectacle Thursday, telling reporters he thought it "a good old-fashioned American debate." His opponents begged to differ: "This is a matter of global security and international peace, and they turned it into the Oprah Winfrey show," complained Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio).
The lesson, then: Don't send policy advisers to do a president's job. Now Clinton himself has stepped back into the bully pulpit; CNN reports the President made a videotaped address in the Oval Office Wednesday that will be distributed to Arab countries. Ironically, there may be less jeers in Oman than in Ohio.