"My view is we got to do it our way; we did our best. We did some things well, some things not so well. Now, they get their chance. And I agree with the president. We owe them our loyalty and our silence while they do it. Because I know what it's like to have people chirping at you when they perhaps don't know what's going on inside. These are quality people. I know them. They love the country. And they won't make the same decisions, perhaps, that we did. But I believe they'll do what they think is best for the country and I'll give my advice privately and keep it to myself."Mmmm. Sometimes I hate her. Other times...
Six years late, but still, I really should be going...I've got a running joke with my girlfriend. It starts in an alternate reality where I'm 20 years older, single, and childless. I've also gone all John Hinckley over Condi Rice, and somehow I manage to finagle my way into a social event where she is a guest. When she's off to herself and no one's looking, I whisper in her ear, "I hate everything you stand for. You take orders from a tribe of orcs who worship the Stone Age and mistake myopia for morality, and brutality for strength. You are a disgrace to your people and their long history of forcing this country to live up to its lofty ideals. Furthermore, you are the most beautiful woman inside the Beltway. Come away with me to a desert island. We will make beautiful arguments together."
Of course there is no alternate reality where anything like this could ever happen. Condoleezza Rice serves at the whim of a bizarro president who has pulled off the trifecta of wrecking the economy, waging a war in Afghanistan, and going off on Iraq before the dust settled in Kabul. She has been a willing participant in our isolation from the UN, and has willingly fed the dogs promoting anti-Americanism.
Worst of all, in the service of Bush, she's proved herself more than willing to obscure the truth. The African uranium hoax was "technically" accurate? But this wasn't the first or even the worst of Rice's prevarications. During one of her early appearances on Meet the Press, Russert went right for home base and asked Rice her thoughts on reparations. Her response was a clumsy attempt at historical revision: "I think reparations, given the fact that there's plenty of blame to go around for slavery, plenty of blame to go around among African and Arab states, plenty of blame to go around among Western states, we're better to look forward and not point fingers backward."
I'm not even for reparations, but that answer was equivalent to saying, "Well, there are four people who were involved in this murder, and since there's plenty of blame to go around, let's not prosecute it." Clearly Rice is smarter than that, and her willingness to use her intellect to bend reality pisses me off. It just makes me want to grab her by the arms, shake her, pin her down, and . . . uhh, I have to go now.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Am I the only one that couldn't help thinking of Smoove when I read this?
Yeah...uhm...I hear ya TNC.
While your take on Condi was creepy and entransing all the same, I completely agree with you. I have also felt like this, again minus the physical element you describe here with Condi, about Colin Powell. I am certain he would have been my first ever republican vote for President had he ran in 2000, but his capitulation since has always soured me on him, then he supported Barack and had some real bite in his critique of the opposition.
Although I have never felt the urge to make "arguments" with him on a deserted island....
Don't lie Keith. We know what you mean by "first ever" and "vote." You've fooled no one.
No one who was around Stanford in the '90's, and progressive in any sense, could have a crush on Condi. I bet there are some readers here who could speak first-hand to her treatment of the hunger strikers or some of the ethnic tension at the university at that time. Here's a generous account (maybe too long, so this might not make the cut...):
"Though the ethnic centers would ultimately escape budget cuts, Rice’s decision to eliminate the position of Cecilia Burciaga, associate dean of Student Affairs and Casa Zapata resident fellow (RF), drew the ire of students. Rice claimed the dismissal of the 20-year employee was strictly for fiscal reasons, but the firing outraged students.
"A group of students soon began a hunger strike, with over 40 people fasting for 24 hours in the Quad, and four continuing for three days. The strike protested Burciaga’s layoff and called on the University to better address a number of Chicano/a issues. The strikes ultimately ended after three days, and the University agreed to sign a letter declaring its commitment to diversity (“Strike ends after three days, agreement reached,” May 9, 1994).
"“Condi is one tough nut,” said Jim Leckie, a civil engineering professor who observed the negotiations between faculty and students. “You would have thought she was negotiating with the Russians and not with students. She clearly received her management training in the Pentagon.”
"Female faculty, too, were displeased with Rice. Some expressed outrage in 1993 with the decision of the Provost’s Committee on the Recruitment and Retention of Women Faculty to remove a number of personal anecdotes about discrimination from its report. Some female faculty suggested she was worried about Stanford’s image; the committee countered that quotes were eliminated to protect privacy.
"Rice’s commitment to women faculty would again be questioned following the denial of tenure to Assistant History Prof. Karen Sawislak. Though her department approved her for tenure, she was rejected by the deans of the School of Humanities and Sciences. Students would form the Student Coalition to Tenure Karen Sawislak, though Rice would eventually deny her appeal in 1998, sparking further outcry.
"Women faculty would cite Sawislak’s case as one example of the Provost’s insensitivity to their issues. A group of female professors released a report in 1998 declaring that Stanford had a poor record of tenuring women faculty in recent years. Rice would call the report “error-ridden” and “a polemic,” dismissing their concerns (“Tenure criticized,” Feb. 25, 1998).
"“I don’t believe myself that there is a crisis,” Rice would say at a later meeting. “I think Stanford is a good place for women.” (“Caucus reports on female profs,” May 11, 1998.)
"“I very strongly feel that tenure is an evaluation,” she added. “You’ve had seven years to prove it. If we start to introduce affirmative action policies into our tenure practices, we’ve entered a slippery slope.”
"A group of faculty and staff would go on to submit a complaint to the U.S. Department of Labor in November 1998, alleging gender discrimination in University hiring and promotion practices including tenure. The investigation did not end until December 2007, when the Department of Labor ruled in favor of the University.
"“No one in this complaint is asking for a preference,” Sawislak said. “We’re asking to be evaluated based on our qualifications.” (“Labor Dept. may probe University,” Feb. 3, 1999.)"
From: http://www.stanforddaily.com/cgi-bin/?p=2922
My favorite Condi moment was 11/5/08, but it didn't make up for the above.
I'm a bit confused -- that first quote seems to be pretty classy, actually. For her. Why the hate?
The rest of her career, perhaps?
Well, right -- thus the "for her." My question was why THIS quote was an exemplar of why TNC hates her.
The first quote is Ms. Rice trying to distance herself from the neo-conservatives. She's only in her mid-fifties which means she has a lot of years left to turn her political celebrity into money in the bank. She's trying to soften her image.
I'm certainly not conflicted about her. She went to the crossroads and sold her soul.
I wonder if it was worth it.
At a time like this, it's so nice to be a straight female and therefore feel not an iota of the desire to have, um, "arguments" with Condi. I am completely satisfied to hold her in utter contempt.
Geez, these comments are a boatload of condescending horsecrap. When one pursues policies that liberals don't like, one is selling one's immortal soul? Better check with Chris Dodd about that! Oh, wait....
TNC, what you've never been able to wrap your head around is the reason that white liberals hate her so much: she's black, female, and conservative. That's race treason to liberals. They would have hated her had there been no Iraq war. Oh, liberal Democrats like to dress up their hate in a lot of superstructure like the Iraq War and the 9/11 memo and Katrina, but had those never happened, they would have found other reasons to hate her.
One of the reasons Rice wisely showed John McCain the door (aside from the fact that Karl told her that JMC was a dead man walking) was that she understood that the Democratic Party and their outriders in the MSM would have done to her what they did to Palin, only worse, because Rice was black and female. Running with McCain would have amounted to race and ideological treason. It would have been extremely ugly for her, having nothing to do with the war. Republicans understood that the attacks against her would have been mysoginistic, homophobic, and deeply racist. That's one of the reasons they forced McCain away from her.
Besides, McCain was a fool. Not even Palin could save him, and she was golden. So even a far better candidate like Rice never got the chance to give McCain a leg up.
Rice is giving Cheney the heave-ho because she understands that he is breaking the Code of Silence, and because Cheney and Rumsfeld were swine to her while she was on the inside. Rice and Bush decided against war with the Iranians for two good reasons: there was no political support in the aftermath of Iraq for any attack on Iran and, two, why not force the Democrats to walk their antiwar walk? If the Ayatollahs are such reasonable guys, let Barack talk them into an atomic peace.
Of course, they're not reasonable guys, and they want the atomic bomb and the power that comes with it, as smart Democrats are beginning to understand. But why not let the Democrats deal with the political consequences of their pacifism?
Cheney never got this. Neither did McCain. However, Rice did, and in the end, so did Bush.
First of all, you cannot say that Condi and W. were following policies that only Dems didn't like. Brent Skocroft, her mentor, (with the tacit support of GHWB) didn't support them either.
As far as Rice being a fool or not, that is difficult to tell. She showed remarkable recall during the 911 hearings when talking about the specific memos and what they contained, but when asked about what they did about them, she basically said they had a meeting and passed on the info. You didn't get any sense of urgency or that she was taking lead or anything. She was remarkably detached. Outside of that what was her role in the Bush administration. Was she a trusted advisor? If so, if she was the voice of experience and knowledge of the region, it is hard to see where it helped or worked. It looks as if her perspective dove-tailed seemlessly with the neo-cons who were all civilian idealists, theorist without practical experience or application. Which leads me to believe that she was simply a good manager and not actually an advisor.
You note two reasons against a war with Iran and then go on to explain the politically calculated one as the more valid of the two which is absurd. We have two active wars going on right now with no clear path to success in either. You cannot seriously think we have the money or resources to open another front simply because the people running that country are potentially dangerous jihadist nutjobs? Look at the map. The world is full of 'em and Pakistan which is nuclear capable does not have a functioning govenment. While idealist pacifism is not the answer, Iraq proved that idealist interventionism isn't either.
I never thought much about Rice, beyond despising her politics. But then I read this speech of hers she gave to uni students when she visited Australia: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24092404-7583,00.html
It made me look up more about her. She's an inspiring women. To go from her background to her academic achievements is pretty astounding. I just hope she goes back to academia now and never again has a role in policymaking.
My biggest beef with Condolezza Rice has to do with a sense of honor.
On 9/10/01 Ms. Rice was pimping Star Wars Technology as our Chief National Security Advisor. On 9/11/01 in the biggest breach of national security in my lifetime, a handful of thugs brought down the World Trade Center and attacked the Pentagon with boxcutters. Rather than doing what a person of honor in her position should have done, tender her resignation, Ms. Rice, despite clear warnings of attacks from the time she had entered office, offered only "who could have imagined?" A question echoed by the Bush Administration at every major crisis and with every failed policy from the post Iraq invasion debacle to the levee breach during Katrina in New Orleans to the financial meltdown of September 08.
Perhaps President Bush would have refused such a resignation, but I know this, if I have the nation's security on my shoulders and we are attacked in a fashion that I cannot imagine, I have the decency to resign my position.
Good to know you remain one of the chirpers chirping at her. You just keep on chirpin', Coates. That's what you're good at.