Hillary Clinton’s video gag about her new teaching gig at Columbia University bombed online, where critics slammed the school, mocked the former secretary of state’s enthusiasm and called her a warmonger.
In the video promoting the foreign policy course, students and Clinton’s co-teacher, Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo, gush about the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate “running again.”
Clinton runs with the lame pun.
“Well, I sure am, Keren, I just got here early for the new class we’re teaching together on foreign policy decision-making,” she says in the skit.
“Classes don’t start until September,” Yarhi-Milo responds — to which Clinton counters she just wants to be prepared.
“Prepared? I think you’re more prepared than anyone to teach this course,” Yarhi-Milo adds.
The “Inside the Situation Room” course will have students “examine decision-making in a variety of historical and contemporary contexts, from the search for Osama bin Laden, to the ‘red line’ in Syria, to negotiating with Iran,” according to a press release from Columbia.
The video sent Twitter into a tizzy.
Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald blasted Clinton for urging “more wars than anyone” in the last three decades.
“The US official who has urged more wars than anyone over the last 3 decades with the possible exception of John Bolton – including Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now Ukraine – is teaching Columbia students a class called ‘Foreign-Policy Decision-Making,’” Greenwald wrote. “And boy they’re excited!”
In a second tweet, Greenwald shared a video of Clinton remarking, “We came. We saw. He died,” after Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was murdered.
“Video of the moment Hillary Clinton learned — as a result of the war she insisted Obama join — that Muammar Gaddafi had been killed by a street mob (after Obama vowed it wasn’t a regime-change war),” he wrote. “This left behind a decade of slavery, ISIS and anarchy in Libya. Anyway…”
Reaction on campus Thursday varied, with one student, dashing through the rain, said she had “mixed feelings” about the class, while two others were critical of the university trying to lure big names.
One Columbia student running through the rain to class Thursday told The Post students had “mixed feelings” about Clinton’s impending arrival on campus. Two others said they felt the university enlisting Clinton mostly reflected the school’s penchant for hiring big names.
“If you really think about it, I don’t think it’s worth it at all to take a class where you are just going for the name of the person that’s teaching it,” said Jules, a 20-year-old sophomore majoring in political ecology and theatre.
Her friend Fiona, a 19-year-old sophomore majoring in environmental humanities, agreed and said she’d much rather take a course taught by someone from a marginalized background.
“That’s more valuable to me. Obviously, she has lived experience in the office, but not really as like being a person in the world,” Fiona told The Post.
Both Jules and Fiona said they were not considering enrolling in Clinton’s course.
Other students said Clinton’s tenure in the White House makes her a valuable tutor.
Annamaria Belevitch, a 20-year-old political science major told The Post it was “always good” to see a big name on campus.
“I guess like in a practical teaching sense at least we know that if someone is teaching us something, it’s not just from the academic, you know, abstract field,” Belevitch said. “I would also say like the experience of being in the spotlight of American politics, maybe it would be an interesting perspective.”
Belevitch said she would take the course and feels Clinton would be a good teacher.
“I’ve been interested to see how she would run the course… I would assume it would be a lot different than like traditional Columbia academic professors that have been scholars all of their careers.”
According to Columbia, the course will give “future participants in the policy process” the necessary background they can draw on in high-pressure situations.
The course is open to Columbia School of International and Public Affairs students, and undergraduate students from Columbia College, Barnard College, and Columbia University School of General Studies by application only.
Undergraduate students applying to Columbia’s five-year joint degree program with the School of International and Public Affairs will receive priority, Columbia said in its release.
