Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has arrived in Kabul for Afghan President Hamid Karzai's inauguration.
Clinton offered pointed criticism of Karzai on the flight to Afghanistan.
Then, when she met Karzai, according to the pool report from Mark Landler of The New York Times, the secretary who famously castigated a student in Kinshasa with the curt cut-down "I'm not going to be channeling my husband," started channeling a Hollywood mobster.
"The conversation was pleasantries, revolving around Mrs. Clinton’s intense travel schedule and inauguration planning," Landler wrote in his pool report.
Then Landler injected a little Hollywood interpretation of the talks:
“You have a long journey and then you go to meetings straightaway,” Mr. Karzai said to Mrs. Clinton.
“It’s the life we’ve chosen,” Mrs. Clinton said, channeling Hyman Roth, the aging gangster in "Godfather: Part II."
For those who don't remember the story, Roth was a Jewish mobster who met a predictably bloody ending in the film.
The exact line is: "This is the business we've chosen."
(The line was also embraced by Tony Soprano.)
Perhaps it would be better for the secretary of state to go back to holding imaginary talks with Eleanor Roosevelt instead...
(AP photo: Anja Niedringhuas)