Crooks and Liars highlights a YahooNews/AP report on Condoleeza Rice (you can see it here) that brings up the troubling issue that, as Secretary of State, Rice has been a dismal failure. The fact that she seems to refuse to change anything shows that, like her boss, she is impervious to self-reflection and the troubling thoughts that might come from it.
When she was appointed National Security Advisor in the first term, I wondered what relevance an expert on the former Soviet Union could have in an era where her area of understanding (I wonder how much "expertise" she actually had, as her tenure has been one long string of lack of accomplishments, including allowing the deadliest attack on American territory in history) no longer existed. Of course, before September 11, 2001, it seemed the Bush Administration was planning on ratcheting up the tension between the US and Russia. In that context, Rice might have been considered a somewhat dubious asset; at least she understood Cold War rhetoric, even if it was no longer relevant. Afterwards, as the Bush team decided to turn its focus to the Fertile Crescent, it might have been adivsable to find someone who, oh, I don't know, spoke Arabic, knew something of the history of the region, and could give Bush information he could use. Of course, that wasn't done, and here we are, five years and some odd onths later, and Rice, like Bush has little to show for her tenure in office, and little hope for any improvement as Bush resolutely marches into the future doing the exact opposite of what he should do.
There was, and still is, talk about Rice as a possible Republican Presidential candidate in the future. I find this highly comical. What possible achievements, accomplishments, and tests of will has she demonstrated in her years of government service? Where is Osama bin Laden? Where are IRaqi weapons of mass destruction? What about those aluminum tubes and the mushroom clouds over America she threw around in the fall of 2002? Will the press be cowed from asking these highly relevant questions by conservatives who can burnish their non-racist credentials by supporting a black woman for president, and force the press to go easy on her precisely for this reason?
We are, I believe, stuck with Rice until January, 2009, but the nice thing is that, while accomplishing nothing since her appointment at the beginning of Bush's second term, she has also done little of demonstrable harm. Benign neglect is the best we can probably expect of her, and with this group in charge, we have to count that as a plus.
Virtual Tin Cup
