Hillary Clinton wasn't a great Secretary of State, Americans say

Hillary Clinton wasn&#039;t a great Secretary of State, Americans say

(Image credit: Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images)

last updated 8 January 2015

Hillary Clinton left the State Department with a sky-high approval rating. A little over a year later, and that has changed significantly.

Only 14 percent of voters say Clinton's tenure as secretary of state was "excellent," according to a new Politico poll. Meanwhile, one-third describe it as "poor" and another 21 percent say it was merely "fair."

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As others have already pointed out, the endless "Benghazi" brouhaha on the right has tainted Clinton's reputation; a Pew poll earlier this year found that Benghazi was the most-cited knock against her. Given Clinton's infamous "reset" moment with Russia, it's likely that the growing crisis in Ukraine is turning the public off to her a bit, too. And then there's the simple fact that Clinton's favorability rating was so high before that it was bound to dip sooner or later.

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Jon Terbush is an associate editor at TheWeek.com covering politics, sports, and other things he finds interesting. He has previously written for Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, and Business Insider.

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