Hillary Clinton and her campaign is receiving high praise from the press in the aftermath of yesterdays hostage situation in one of her New Hampshire offices.

The AP says Clinton was “calm”.

When the hostages had been released and their alleged captor arrested, a regal-looking Hillary Rodham Clinton strolled out of her Washington home, the picture of calm in the face of crisis.
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The image, broadcast just as the network news began, conveyed the message a thousand town hall meetings and campaign commercials strive for — namely, that the Democratic presidential contender can face disorder in a most orderly manner.

Meanwhile Politico offered that “The scene was one of a woman in charge.”

“It looked and sounded presidential,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “This was an instance of the White House experience of this campaign. They knew how to handle this.”

Clinton and her staff, especially those who were taken hostage, desere the accolades. Often managing, especially for a president, is more about knowing when to sit back and not say or do anything grand as it is about rising to big moments. So much happens in our nation and the world in a day. We face terrorism and murder, gang violence and random acts of disharmony and destruction. There are so many things a president and an administration cannot do and when those time come it is best to sit back and let professionals do their job.

It would be easy for a campaign to get in the way. To get on TV and flood the airwaves, to pontificate, opine, ruminate and interject themselves into the public psyche risking a further escalation of the situation. Clinton did none of those things, quietly canceling all campaign appearances, heading to New Hampshire to be there at the end and knowing the right moment to seize, the moment after the professionals had done their jobs.

With a one paragraph note on their Web page and released to the press during the crisis they said all they needed to say, nothing more or less. They managed the situation well.