Hillary Clinton Masters Informal Diplomacy

Aug. 9, 2012 -- The new video of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's boogying down in South Africa, while on an 11-day tour of the continent, is just the latest example of a more relaxed, spontaneous Clinton.

She also danced with farmers in Malawi earlier this week while a bull she had gifted them looked on. There's also the picture of her drinking and dancing in Cartagena, Colombia, and the attention paid when she went "au naturale" on makeup for a news conference in Asia.

The secretary's more "human moments" have not been limited to her overseas trips. She swore in Assistant Secretary Mike Hammer wearing wing-tipped sunglasses and Mardi Gras beads. Her official response to the viral sensation, "Texts from Hillary " -- a Tumblr blog featuring a picture of her on a BlackBerry with cool sunglasses sending fictional texts to other world leaders and famous people -- was to post on the blog herself. She also invited the men who conceived the blog to the State Department and took a picture with them.

Such "Hillary Unplugged" moments have only made her more popular with the general public. As secretary of state, Clinton has carried the highest popularity numbers in her more than 20 years in public life.

See more lighthearted Hillary Clinton moments here.

But for all the light moments, make no mistake, when it comes to the actual diplomatic responsibilities of the position, Clinton, 64, is all business. While her dancing in Africa has made all the headlines, her announcement of the United States' handing over major anti-AIDS projects to the South African government is seen as a major diplomatic step toward the Obama administration's goals of building more equal partnerships with African nations.

The truth is that behind every Hillary dancing, partying or coughing headline, there are some serious foreign policy actions going on.

Clinton has had to deal with the Arab Spring and the opening up of democracy in Myanmar that included the release of activist Aung San Suu Kyi, who has called Clinton a friend. For the past several months, she has had the difficult task of trying to use diplomacy to end Syria's bloodshed, which has included thousands of deaths. Clinton has called the negotiations difficult, but that true diplomacy is never an easy thing.

"There's no satisfying, immediate answer, but that's part of what diplomacy is," Clinton told students at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., in April. "You just get up every day and you keep going at it. It's oftentimes quite frustrating, but there doesn't seem to be any other path but that one to follow."

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