It is hard to imagine Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright or Henry Kissinger “livin' la vida loca” on the world stage... The overwhelmingly liberal US media is treating the story as a bit of fun, with the usually austere Mrs Clinton seen as letting her hair down. But I suspect that a lot of US taxpayers will see it differently – as a senior government official having a jolly time on an official overseas junket at taxpayers’ expense.
I think the connection between the lavish Government Services Administration's recent excesses and Secretary Clinton's jaunt in South America is tenuous at best. It's difficult to imagine that Clinton's forerunners as U.S. diplomats never had a bit of fun in their position. What is clear is that "the world stage," as Gardiner puts it, isn't just in front of TV cameras at summits any more. We live in a world of social media, where one's own staffers are armed with iPhones and twitter - meaning that even a small gathering at a lounge in Colombia has become the world stage.
It may be unfortunate, but it's true: with technology wiring people around the world, there's very little privacy left.