And Hillary Clinton thought she was having a bad day when she broke her elbow ...

Today, a meeting of Asian leaders in Thailand turned into the set of "Mean Girls": North Korea called the Secretary of State a "funny lady" who "looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping." Ouch. To be fair, Clinton stirred it up earlier this week when she compared North Korea to "unruly teenagers."

For the Secretary of State, this latest scrap must feel like the cherry on top of a big fat banana peel of a month.

This is Clinton's first trip abroad since she fell and broke her elbow in the White House basement last month. (Does the White House offer workman's comp?) Clinton's duties, naturally, were curtailed somewhat during her recuperation, but political pundits quickly jumped on the fact that while she was laid up, President Obama was gallivanting around the globe sans his Secretary of State.

Fox News asked whether it was a broken elbow or "sinister forces at work" to sideline the Secretary of State. Tina Brown at The Daily Beast blogged that it was "time for Barack Obama to let Hillary Clinton take off her burqa," while the New York Daily News dubbed her plight "The curious case of the steadily shrinking Hillary Clinton." Foreign Policy website noted that Obama has been to several countries without her.

So while Clinton was recuperating from surgery on her broken elbow and handling her job as best as she could from home, she has also had to defend her boss and reassure everyone that, yes, she is, in fact, happy with her job.

Clinton responded to the rumors, speculation and analysis with a quippy "I broke my elbow, not my larynx," and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs reiterated the president's support:

"They enjoy a very close relationship. I think the Secretary of State is somebody who the president relies on greatly ... The notion that there's some rift or disagreement is nothing more than silly Washington games."

In an interview with Thai television this week, Clinton recounted how surprised she was when the president offered her the job, and how it's been "everything she could have hoped for."

"He [Obama] gave me an enormous amount of authority as secretary of state, and really everything I asked for so that I could do the job that he wanted me to do ... He said, 'Look, I really need you, and I believe that we can have a great relationship', and we do," she said. "It's been everything I could have hoped for."

When Clinton was asked if her future career plans still included becoming president of the United States, she replied, "I'm saying no because I have a very committed attitude to the job I have. And so that's not at all on my radar screen."

But even though it's been a bumpy and unexpected road for the former first lady, ex-New York senator and now Secretary of State, history has proven that it's never wise to count a Clinton out.

— Lili Ladaga