by Frank James

It's a good news, bad news day for Sen. Hillary Clinton.

The good news is that a new Gallup Poll indicates she is the world's most admired woman for the sixth consecutive year, edging out Oprah Winfrey for the top spot.

Since Winfrey is very publicly supporting Clinton's rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, perhaps this result is a good portent for Clinton.

As Gallup reports:

With 16% of total mentions for most admired woman, Winfrey had her strongest showing to date in the current poll. But Clinton also had a stronger-than-usual score in 2007 -- the 18% who mention the former first lady is the highest since 2000 (19%). Clinton's best performance was in 1998, when 28% said they most admired her, just as her husband was being impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives in the Monica Lewinsky matter.

Winfrey has now finished second on the most admired woman list every year since 1997 with the exception of 2001, when she was third (to Laura Bush and Clinton). During that time, she has come within two percentage points of Clinton for the top spot on one other occasion (2004) and within one point on two occasions (2002 and 2005).

After Clinton and Winfrey, the remainder of the top 10 most admired women are Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (5%), actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie (3%), first lady Laura Bush (3%), former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (2%), former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (2%), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, author Maya Angelou, and Queen Elizabeth II (all at 1%).

Now the bad news. The New York Times has a front-page story today by Patrick Healy which may make some voters rethink her main argument for why she should be the Democratic presidential nominee, that she's got the most relevant experience, especially on foreign policy gained during her time as First Lady.

As the Times story spells out, Clinton's White House experience wasn't really in policy-making arena.

Nor did she have the necessary security clearances that would have allowed her access to a constant stream of classified briefings and materials.

This is how the Times reprises her eight years in the White House:

But during those two terms in the White House, Mrs. Clinton did not hold a security clearance. She did not attend National Security Council meetings. She was not given a copy of the president’s daily intelligence briefing. She did not assert herself on the crises in Somalia, Haiti and Rwanda.

And during one of President Bill Clinton’s major tests on terrorism, whether to bomb Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, Mrs. Clinton was barely speaking to her husband, let alone advising him, as the Lewinsky scandal sizzled.

In seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, Mrs. Clinton lays claim to two traits nearly every day: strength and experience. But as the junior senator from New York, she has few significant legislative accomplishments to her name. She has cast herself, instead, as a first lady like no other: a full partner to her husband in his administration, and, she says, all the stronger and more experienced for her “eight years with a front-row seat on history.”

Her rivals scoff at the idea that her background gives her any special qualifications for the presidency. Senator Barack Obama has especially questioned “what experiences she’s claiming” as first lady, noting that the job is not the same as being a cabinet member, much less president.

A bit later in the story, Healy writes this:

An interview with Mrs. Clinton, conversations with 35 Clinton administration officials and a review of books about her White House years suggest that she was more of a sounding board than a policy maker, who learned through osmosis rather than decision-making, and who grew gradually more comfortable with the use of military power.

Osmosis. That's the very word many of her critics have used, usually with an implied smirk or sneer, to attack her experience argument. Indeed, the Obama camp has used it.

Frank Rich, in his Times column Sunday, quotes President John F. Kennedy's aide, Theodore Sorenson, who supports Obama, thusly:

“Hillary should be careful about scoffing at other people’s experience,” Mr. Sorensen said. “It’s not as if the process of osmosis gives her presidential qualities by physical proximity.”

Regardless of how critics may scoff at her experience argument, it's the strongest case she can make against Obama and John Edwards. She can't run as a new face of hope. Obama has that sewn up. She's also not going to out-populist Edwards.

So experience is the strongest hand she has.

Her campaign issued a release today that reinforces that all her chips are on that message. It starts:

As Iowans prepare to gather to pick a President on January 3rd, one central question should be on their minds:

“Who would be the best president?”

America faces a war abroad and a troubled economy at home -- critical moments that demand a President who is tested, ready to lead on Day 1 and offers real solutions to the big challenges we face. And that person is Hillary Clinton.

That’s the message Hillary will be carrying throughout Iowa as she embarks today on a nine day swing in the lead up to the caucuses. She begins the tour in Mt. Pleasant with President Bill Clinton, Governor Tom Vilsack, and Christie Vilsack. She will also make stops in Pella, IA and Cumming, IA.

Throughout the trip, Hillary is going to talk about her 35 years of making change happen – from protecting kids from abuse, to reforming education in Arkansas, to helping get health care for six million children and for our nation's reservists and guardsmen.

Change isn’t something you just demand or hope for, it is something you work for and Hillary has been working for it all her life.