The Allure is Gone. The Fading of Condi Rice

[illinoisprogressive]

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Pentagon_Inspector_General_to_release_investigation_0207.html


Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush, riding high after his re-election two years ago, tapped his confidante and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to chart an ambitious, second-term foreign policy as secretary of state.

In February 2005, Rice, already the star of the Bush cabinet, described for reporters on her maiden cross-Atlantic trip as secretary ``the tremendous opportunities ahead of us,'' including spreading ``freedom and liberty to places they've never been.''

Two years later, few of those goals have been realized. Iraq, and possibly Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, are sliding into civil war, Iran is pursuing its nuclear ambitions unchecked, Russia is ignoring demands for political and economic openness, and China is building ties with U.S. adversaries.

Rice's public approval rating is slipping, and she is getting more of the flak for the prosecution of the Iraq war than ever before.

``Condi is seen as being the loyal implementer of the president's policy priorities, and as a result she's getting the same kind of treatment as her boss,'' said Lee Feinstein, a former State Department policy planner now at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

Last month, that new criticism was evident as Rice was pummeled in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee while trying to sell Bush's troop-increase plan for Iraq. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, even questioned whether Rice, 52, was capable of a wise decision in Iraq because she is childless and won't suffer a personal loss.

[porphyrian]

1. There was allure? - n/t

[tridim]

3. Never. No allure that I could detect.

Unless you find oil tankers charming.

[speedoo]

5. MMCA

Media Manufactured Condi Allure.

[Gabi Hayes]

2. WHEN are the media going to start holding her lying feet to the fire?

she's told more out and out, documentable lies than anybody in that rotten admninistration, Cheney included. he's much craftier in assembling his BS than she is.

is there a more transparent liar since Nixon?

those fluttering eyelids, the quavering voice, the shaking head-that-says-no when she's assuring us she's telling us yes.....

[SharonAnn]

4. She's incompetent. I always knew that. She could only get ahead by

attaching herself to someone like &* who requires unquestioning adoration and dispenses favors accordingly.

It's a type of prostitution. Men do it too, see "Brownie" at FEMA.

[Cha]

6. I saw her big ugly mug on

time magazine in the library this week..didn't even bother to read what they had to say on the front.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

7. yeah.

her grimace/frown/scowl thing probably isn't the thing to put on covers if they want to sell mags . . .

[Cha]

11. It's her insides that are oozing out and

making her so buttugly.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

12. yes

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

8. What has she ever done except parrot the Bushco party line?

At least a guy like Rummy had his own ideas and initiatives, like the streamlined, blitzkrieg "shock and awe" military that doesn't require 300K troops to occupy a country!

Okay, his ideas were whacked and didn't work, but at least they were his. Condi? Bupkus.

[Chulanowa]

9. Condi's job isn't ideas.

Condi's job is to be the token black woman. Republicans have an attack machine set up so that if any of their token minority / female spokespeople get criticised, it's immediately labeled racism or sexism. And the media is terrified of those labels. You saw it with Clarence Thomas and Harriet Meirs.

To the Republicans, the value of these three - Rice, Thomas, and Meirs, isn't in their ideas. Their value is that they adhere to an old white guy's opinions - Scalia for Thomas, Bush for Meirs and Rice - and thus provide a shield against criticisms of those opinions due to their sex / ethnicity.

THis is of course, the republican idea of multiculturalism.

[Straight Shooter]

10. Nonsense. Boxer said condi "had no skin in the game," a legitimate criticism.

No one -- absolutely no one -- in the bush administration has any "skin in the game" where Iraq is concerned. There is no close blood relative of any bush administration member at risk because of this war. Probably no blood relative at all. They do protect their own, and the rest be damned.

I can't believe this baseless accusation against Boxer is still being recycled.

[jaysunb]

13. A nasty swipe at Sen Boxer

and totally unneccessary......

[Missy M]

14. Agreed...

that swipe at Senator Boxer had no place in the story and is taken out of concept of what Senator Boxer really said and I agreed with.

[underpants]

15. Funny CNN just did a story on this but it started with her "rock star" status

If I didn't know any better I would have thought it was the beginning of a campaign for her to run for something.