Should we have any sympathy for her? She knew the players when she accepted the position.

She knew she would probably have little success, she took the job, and so far she has had little success. Dry tears here.

Rice is our chief diplomatic officer. If she can't run rings around cheney and rumsfeld when it comes to her OWN turf, she not much of a diplomat....

Ah, Kevin.

That's not a very nice thing to write about your next President, is it?

Quick: name one secretary of state who was more effective than Rice. Oh, what - what's that? Cat got your tongue? Did I stump you?

No, you don't get more time. Thanks for playing!

Quick: name one secretary of state who was more effective than Rice. Oh, what - what's that? Cat got your tongue? Did I stump you?

Hey, egbert, I've been waiting for Kevin's answer, but I still haven't seen it. How come? *Snicker*

Al

Quick: name one secretary of state who was more effective than Rice.

The crud at the bottom of my garbage can was a more effective SoS than Rice. And it wasn't even SoS.

Most of Rice's numerous successes just haven't occurred yet.

Condoleeza Rice is a lying sack of shit.

Egbert quick name one thing Condi has done right.Whaa huh eeeehehehh.Hell I will give you the weekend to think about it.Good Luck.

I'm with wishIwuz above. I think it's true that nobody could have succeeded as Sec of State in this administration, but that hardly makes Rice an innocent victim. She's a guilty party in helping to create this festival of incompetence and deserves full blame for that.

"Egbert" and "Real Al":

I realize you both are probably simply Republican talking points computer programs, but in case you are real people, you should note that this post was not written by Kevin, but by Steve Benen.

My brother is a college professor and knew Rice when she was a professor and later, provost, at Stanford University. Her area of expertise was supposedly Soviet studies, but she was arguing that the Soviet Union was gaining strength when we know now they were getting weaker (Google "Team B" for more details). She was considered a hack then and she is a hack now. She has parlayed the fact she is a conservative black woman (a very rare combination, for good reason) into one of the highest governmental posts you can be appointed to. May I remind everyone that she has been elected to exactly nothing.

By the way, egbert, Madeline Albright was considered to be an excellent Secretary of State by Senators in both parties, as well as her peers in the diplomatic corps. You probably won't hear that on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, though.

The Barnacles on the bottom of the oiltanker named after her has more use then her.

To be fair to Rice, no one could have anticipated any of the world's problems that have occurred, all because of that Y2K glitch.

Secretaries of State more effective than Rice?Madeline Albright and Henry Kissinger are just two of the blindingly obvious answers that come to mind.

However, I do think that a great deal of this is who she's working for and the policies she's representing. She deserves blame for the fact that she actually supports these policies, and I don't for one minute believe she's as capable as either Kissinger or Albright. Nevertheless, I think she's done a surprisingly good job, probably more effective than anyone else Bush would have been willing to appoint. She understands Bush, she generally agrees with him, and she's part of the inner circle--all key qualifications for getting anything done in this administration, and to some degree in any administration. She combines complete loyalty to Bush with a greater willingness to hear outside information.

She won't be recorded as one of the great Secretaries of State, but I give her a passing grade.

Condi has just a short distance to go before she drops to the level of esteem usually reserved for John Foster Dulles (and I need a shower just letting that succession of letters crawl off my fingers).

Did the Y2K glitch have something to do with the final vote count in Florida 2000?

I was not only great, but I was IN CHARGE, to boot.

Regardless of Rice's success or failure, the whole "birth pangs of the new Middle East" bit, which she more or less reiterated last week in this interview:

"The old Middle East was not going to stay," Rice said. "Let's stop mourning the old Middle East. It was not so great, and it was not going to survive anyway."

You should mourn the old Middle East, Condi you bitch, because we've apparently opened the floodgates on more Iraqi violent deaths in the past four years, than Saddam managed during his decades of rule. If this doesn't matter to you, then you are without any vestige of morality or compassion, and no one worth a damn should be willing to associate with you.

May you eventually have to testify at The Hague.

Her area of expertise was supposedly Soviet studies, but she was arguing that the Soviet Union was gaining strength when we know now they were getting weaker

TCD, the intel community knew then. But Rice and our new SecDef Gates were adamant that the Soviets were gettign stronger even as the wall was falling.

Self-serving, manipulative and mendacious? Yes. Competent? Not so much.

RT wrote: "If this doesn't matter to you, then you are without any vestige of morality or compassion, and no one worth a damn should be willing to associate with you."

All the evidence indeed indicates that Condoleeza Rice, like her "husband" George W. Bush, is a sociopath, and is indeed "without any vestige of morality or compassion".

Also, she is a lying sack of shit.

There is a place for her in the Federal government -- but it's not in the State Department. It's in Federal prison for perjuring herself before Congress.

Not that it's a defense of Rice-Erroneous or anything, but in the rarefied world of BushCo,
success is simply not an option.

As to who has been a more effective secretary of state, golly, I just can't think of any. Mainly because, with these guys, history began five minutes ago.

"I'm with wishIwuz above. I think it's true that nobody could have succeeded as Sec of State in this administration, but that hardly makes Rice an innocent victim. She's a guilty party in helping to create this festival of incompetence and deserves full blame for that."

Yep, powell had the only diplomatic success they were interested in by muddying the waters with lies sufficiently enough to get the war. Beyond that they seem to enjoy failing diplomatically. The secretary of state's real job in the bush administration is to go on the sunday morning talkshows and spew whatever focus tested nonsense they are using that particular weekend and, like cheney, tell the lies that bush only implies in his speeches so that later when it all falls apart they can claim bush never said whatever the lie was.

Global Citizen wrote: "TCD, the intel community knew then. But Rice and our new SecDef Gates were adamant that the Soviets were gettign stronger even as the wall was falling."

This was a perpetuation of the scam that Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz perpetrated in the Ford administration, when they sabotaged Nixon's detente policy with false claims of a huge Soviet buildup of advanced "weapons of mass destruction".

Gotta keep those trillions of taxpayer dollars flowing to the military-industrial complex, you know.

We here at Sak's Fifth, can categorically state and aver that Ms Rice has been not only a shrewd negotiator in our women's shoe department, but one of most loyal customers. Why, who could forget the time when a crazed lady from Hungary was arguing with a Diva from France over a pair of Guccis - Ms Rice stepped into the fray, and, voila, all was smoothed over. Marvelous, simply marvelous. An asset to the world of pimps, er pumps - Why worry about such mundane things as global peace and Katrina, when one can buy, buy, buy.

jefff nailed it: "The secretary of state's real job in the bush administration is to go on the sunday morning talkshows and spew whatever focus tested nonsense they are using that particular weekend and, like cheney, tell the lies that bush only implies in his speeches so that later when it all falls apart they can claim bush never said whatever the lie was."

That sort of sums up the whole essence of the Bush administration. Lies, lies, lies and more lies. An endless stream of lies.

And "Bush" -- the manufactured cartoon character "President George W. Bush" that is presented to the American people -- is himself a lie. There is no such person. Just an aging dry drunk frat boy punk who got through life by having his daddy's rich friends clean up his messes.

Kenji, you do realize that Rice-Erroneous is so good that I stole it immediately, don't you?

Hell, Richard Holbrooke was more effective than Rice and he wasn't even SoS. Clinton's third string could run circles around Bush's top people without sweating.

How can Steve Benen be held responsible for lame postings? After all, this is Kevin Drum's site.

I think Rice has been very effective in stitching up some of the wounds with our European "allies." She's much more aggressive than Colin Powell, and has gotten us more support in Afghanistan.

Here are a few of Condi's successes:

Dumping the Agreed Framework...
Architect of the new alliance with India, greatly strengthening the US position vis a vis China in Asia...
Getting China and Russia to agree to UN sanctions against Iran...
Backing Israel in it's attempt to crush Hezbollah (and materially, Hezbollah was in worse shape after.)

Rice understands that the ME needs to be exploded and start over. It's not pretty now, but liberals are of course willfully blind of this work in process.

Nobody could have anticipated that Rice would fail.

Oh wait, yes they could.

Quick: name one secretary of state who was more effective than Rice.

Restricting myself to those serving under Presidents named Bush, James A. Baker III is the first that comes to mind.

Liz. No offense. Rice has presided over the single biggest foreign policy debacle in our nation's two hundred plus year history.
Posted by: Pat on December 29, 2006 at 5:51 PM | PERMALINK

. . . never mind her presiding as NSA over the single biggest National Security debacle in our nation's two hundred plus year history.

No make that the two biggest debacles. The second worst was 9/11. The worst was allowing George W Bush to be sworn-in.

I think Rice has been very effective in stitching up some of the wounds with our European "allies." ...
Posted by: minion on December 29, 2006 at 6:13 PM | PERMALINK

. . . hence the tens of thousands of French, German, and Czechoslovakian troops that are flooding into Iraq to help us with our "surge".

egbert: Architect of the new alliance with India, greatly strengthening the US position vis a vis China in Asia

Eh, why did she bother? We're selling our country to China anyway.

BTW, anyone who thinks that India will ever be a strong ally of the US (or anyone else for that matter) doesn't know jack about Indian history. They've always had a very independent foreign policy.

Of course, considering people's much worse ignorance of say, Iraqi or Vietnamese history, that doesn't suprise me.

A scary thought is that Rice is the sane one in this administration.

Rumsfeld Hater,

I said they were willing to send troops to Afghanistan - from their perspective that's a big deal, and I guess we should applaud there willingness to crawl before they can walk.
If the next Dem SecState can get Czechoslovakian troops to help out, then I'll agree Rice was a failure. Maybe she'll get some AustroHungarian troops on board too.

Extradite Rumsfeld: hence the tens of thousands of French, German, and Czechoslovakian troops that are flooding into Iraq to help us with our "surge"

Shhh, those are stealth troops. Nobody is supposed to see them.

Reminds me of the aircraft identification system the Germans used on D-Day:

Blue: British

Silver: American

Can't be seen: German

I lost all respect for Rice when she lied on the missile cannisters on the run up to war when everybody knew they were not nuclear centrifuges as she claimed-the idea boggles the mind. What's equally amazing is that she continues to tell the lie to this day-in other words- she has no credibility anywhere in the world or inside the administration.

I never had any respect for her that I could lose, as she had never earned any from me.

This was a perpetuation of the scam that Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz perpetrated in the Ford administration, when they sabotaged Nixon's detente policy with false claims of a huge Soviet buildup of advanced "weapons of mass destruction".

I not so sure that they weren't foolish enough to believe most of their own rhetoric about the Soviet Union. They are not very bright people.

All this just proves Rush is right -- liberals just can't stand a successful, competent black person.

and we can't stand Condi, either!

Raul: "I lost all respect for Rice when she lied on the missile cannisters on the run up to war when everybody knew they were not nuclear centrifuges as she claimed-the idea boggles the mind."

Condoleeza Rice sat in front of the 9/11 Commission and blatantly, sneeringly, lied to their faces. They knew she was lying, and she knew that they knew she was lying, and she simply didn't give a damn.

Condoleeza Rice is a lying sack of shit. She belongs in prison. But then so do all the principals of the Bush administration.

They are nothing but a gang of career war profiteering corporate criminals masquerading as "conservative" politicians to dupe weak-minded, gullible people into supporting them so they can loot the US Treasury and use the US military to seize control of the world's last, biggest oil supplies to enrich themselves and their cronies
and financial backers in the military-industrial-petroleum complex.

Rice fits in perfectly with this gang of thugs.

All this just proves Rush is right -- liberals just can't stand a successful, competent black person.

No, but thanks for playing. We can't stand incopetence, mendacity and perfidy no matter the gender or race.

Lloyd Axworthy, former Canadian Foreign Minister, published quite the open smackdown in an open letter to Condolezza Rice, 3/3/05, and said this of and Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice:

"Such control-freak antics may work in the virtual one-party state that now prevails in Washington. But in Canada we have a residual belief that politicians should be subject to a few checks and balances, an idea that your country once espoused before the days of empire."

At the end of the letter, he said "And...there are times that truth must speak to power."

He referred to Bush as her "divinely guided master in the White House..."

The letter was about respecting respecting Canada's point of view on issues.

There are some very distinguished names in this list of the nation's Secretaries of State and some were highly successful in promoting the nation's interest. Unfortunately, neither Powell or Rice fall into that category. In fact there is no one in the Bush regime that has a distinguished record of accomplishment, although some have a good record diminishing government effectiveness.

In fact there is no one in the Bush regime that has a distinguished record of accomplishment, although some have a good record diminishing government effectiveness.

With the exception of some Inspectors' General who actually tried to do their jobs, and found those jobs eliminated when they didn't put party before country.

Or whistle-blowers punished for their dedication--federal workers, climate change experts, Medicare experts saying no to the doctoring of facts

Kindasleazy was a so-called expert on Soviet affairs, and supposedly is fluent in Russian. She Was Daddy's principle advisor on the Soviet Union and she missed the collapse of the goddamned Soviet Union?

Jesus fuckity fuck, how do you spell incompetence?

Anybody with any fucking interest whatsoever knew for years that the Soviet Union was just a fucking shell. There was nothing there to defend.

She should have stuck with the fucking piano.

little ole jim from red country: I not so sure that they weren't foolish enough to believe most of their own rhetoric about the Soviet Union.

Or about Iraq. That scares me. Somebody lying through their teeth about such important matters pisses me off, but people who actually believe their own bullshit really scare me.

Speaking as one who rose early to get to the rink by 5:30 every morning and then hustled to the conservatory after school for piano lessons most afternoons; I wince whenever I see KindaSleazy on a piano bench or on skates.

Knocking Rice for not predicting the collapse of the USSR reminds me of an LBJ story -- LBJ was giving his advisors hell for not predicting Kruschev's ouster, and the head of the CIA replied, "Well, if Kruschev couldn't predict it, I don't know why we should be expected to."

Minion,

Shit, she was an "expert" for Christ's sake. I an just an old retired history teacher and I knew the Soviet Union was a potemkin empire.

Lies, all lies. "We've been told there is nothing inconsistent about the fact that the administration has said the Mission was Accomplished six weeks after invading Iraq; later that the insurgency was in its final throes; and still later, that it might take as long as 12 years to quell the insurgency.
And that worldwide terrorism was on the decline when it wasn't, that Iraqi soldiers were rapidly being trained to take over security roles when they weren't, and that the capture of Saddam Hussein, the drafting of a constitution and elections would ease the unrest, when they didn't"

from "What is the 'character' of the Bush administration?" 10/16/05 Miami Herald, by
Robert Steinbeck

If this site were as concerned about credibility, or at least not spreading LIES!!!!!, there would have been an update on the Kerry Picture post, admitting the photo has been proven to be authentic and the moonbat denunciation of it was complete HOGWASH!!!!!!

I will now turn off my caplock keys for the rest of this year.

Dr. Rice deserves better treatment than this. She is a lady.

Global Citizen:

You are right - the intel community did know the Soviet Union was crumbling in the 1980s, but Rice, Wolfowitz. Perle and the other Team B hacks that have f*cked this country up so badly were saying otherwise. You know your history. Those assholes got a significant number of Americans to buy into the need for SDI ("Star Wars"). What a crock.

Three words that say everything you need to say about Condi's effectiveness as Sec. of State - Roadmap to Peace. As Andy Griffith used to say, "Pitiful. Just pitiful."

TCD

Rice and the rest of the administration have been so far off the mark, wrong on almost every count.
They have never given satisfactory answers on critical questions.
We would never be where we are if this crew had anticipated the threats to the world trade center, and there WERE warnings. They were not 'historical' in nature, as Ms Rice said when she lied, in her offical capacity.

Tonight on The History Channel,

Hitler and the Occult, Ancient prophecy and occult ritual fascinate Nazi Germany.

Hell: the Devil's Domain, Pre-biblical concepts of a negative afterlife; Satan in art and literature; afterlife in major religions; recovered memories; Church of Satan.

Voodoo Secrets, The ancient religion of voodoo predates Christianity.

I laugh every time I hear some Republican lickspittle tout her as a potential Presidential candidate. Bring it on. I love it.

Rice's recent comments justifying agression as the "birth pangs of a new Middle East" are pure evil. 1939: "Don't mourn the old Poland. It sucked. Now it will be part of a better world."

Rice's catastrophic failures in office begin with her ignoring the warnings from the CIA and the advisor on terrorism in the summer of 2001, about a coming terrorist strike.

I think she believed in 2001 that the coming terrorist attack would be a "birth pang" too - it would provide the pretext for agression. Just a small number dead, like a birth contraction, sort of. A plane with a couple hundred people held hostage, just what the public needed to support an attack on Iraq. As she said, they never imagined that planes would be flown into buildings (although that was a foreseen risk, by those who took seriously the terrorist threat.)

Rice has been so over-rated and woefully underproductive, living in an alternate universe, apparently... She looked kind of ill behind Bush today in a brief statement from Crawford. I thought she too had aged quite a bit

putnam: Rice's catastrophic failures in office begin with her ignoring the warnings from the CIA and the advisor on terrorism in the summer of 2001, about a coming terrorist strike. ... I think she believed in 2001 that the coming terrorist attack would be a "birth pang" too - it would provide the pretext for agression.

Never ascribe to conspiracy what can be explained by mere incompetence.

What astounds me is not how Rice, et al, lied through their teeth about things like the "historical" memo, but how willing people were to accept those lies. Third grade teachers expect better excuses from their students (and usually get them).

I'm glad to see Rice finally getting attention for her lack of achievements - why she was ever considered brillian is just amazing to me.

Also - when she speaks she always sounds drugged and out of it. Semi-coherent.

As evil as Kissinger was, at least you knew you were dealing with someone smart. Rice just seems stupid.

As for more effective ones?
Thomas Jefferson was Secy of State to G. Washington
John Marshall was John Adam's SoS.
James Madison was Sos to Thomas Jefferson
John Quincy Adams was Sos to James Monroe

y'all getting my drift?

Daniel Webster was also likely to have been better. Hell, Abel P. Upshur was probably better than Rice.

William Seward for Lincon wasn't too shabby even if Lincon did have to slap him a time or two.

I'm willing to bet that Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, Chester Arthur's Sos was better.

I know you people can't stand Condi, but we like her.

Madam President, anyone?

They always make the Democrats to be the party of minorities, but while they keep putting old white guys in positions of power, we're putting blacks, asians and hispanics in the top spots. That's called putting your money where your mouth is.

I still predict Rice will be McCain's VP, and succeed him in 2012.

Sure, Rice hasn't had any successes to speak of, but given her superiors, should this come as a surprise to anyone?

well, and given too that you guys have diminished yourselves. The post-war alliances centered around the States are essentially broken and are not going to become unbroken even with a Dem president. The US is now longer the center (whatever your wingnuts may think) and we're turning much more skeptical eyes towards cooperation across the board and looking more now to work with each other even to the exclusion of the States (we don't see the interests of the Pentagon and of democracy as going hand-in-hand). It is now and will continue to be that much harder to be a successful Secretary of State.

Madam President, anyone?

I still predict Rice will be McCain's VP, and succeed him in 2012.

Wow, back-to-back steaming piles of ridiculousness. You guys should start a comedy act. Hey, if Rice prefers to remain in the closet do you think McCain will choose Rumsfield instead?

Just to clarify--as National Security Advisor, I can't think of a failing grade low enough to describe her non-performance.

But as Secretary of State--the policies she's representing and supporting are appalling, but the blame for that lies not just with her but with the entire administration, starting with W. himself. As the official charged with representing and implementing those policies, though, she's done an adequate job. Her success is so low in large part because the policies themselves are so unacceptable to our allies and adversaries that Albright, Kissinger, Baker, Adams--name who you will, they couldn't sell these pigs' ears inadequately masquerading as silk purses.

Of course, one of the differences between them and her is that most of them wouldn't have tried. They'd have explained to the president why these policies wouldn't work, made the case for different policies--and if they couldn't budge the president from a disastrous course, they'd have resigned. Rice's biggest failing is that she either really believes in these policies, or she's willing to fake it.

As Secretary of State from 2003 on, I would give Rice a grade of D. In contrast, Defense Sec. Rumsfeld I would give an F-. Rice hasn't accomplished much and the policies she is representing are abysmal, but I don't see the mass disintegration of morale at the State Dept. that we have seen in the Pentagon.

Please. Have you ever heard a single, solitary insight of any kind come out of the woman's mouth since she first started appearing in public as a "Soviet expert" way back when? None. Not one. Not on Russia and the SU, not on the Middle East, not on Europe, nothing. The Conservative Deflator's brother is completely right, the woman is a hack, always has been, always will be.

The very first public appearance of this woman caused me to think that this was one of the most evil looking people I have ever seen in my life and nothing she has done or said since has changed my mind. She supported George W's lies that led to war and she did it knowingly and willingly and she has supported every Constitutional evasion since. The eyes are the mirror of the soul. I feel sorry for the American people and I feel even more sorry for American Black people that she is a representative of them.

Kenji, you do realize that Rice-Erroneous is so good that I stole it immediately, don't you?
Posted by: Global Citizen

Beats my Imelda Rice into pudding.

Tips virtual hat to Kenji.

Kenji,

Rice-Erroneous - I like it - should have put the erroneous on a few of our race horses instead of Roni - Condi did try to teach just south of "by the San Francisco Bay"

"She has parlayed the fact she is a conservative black woman (a very rare combination, for good reason) into one of the highest governmental posts you can be appointed to."

Kinda like Clarence Thomas in drag. Say, has anyone seen the two of them in the same room?

As to her skills as SOS, she eschews negotiation with our enemies because "we'd have to give them too much." In other words, she assumes she'd fail at diplomacy, so she doesn't even try. I wouldn't give a dime for her expertise on Soviet issues. How did she become an "expert" without any appreciation for the decades of negotiations the US had with the USSR over REAL weapons of mass destruction.

As to the "new alliance with India" I'm sure Iran and North Korea are happy to see that it's not necessary to sign the non-proliferation treaty to become best friends with the US of A. Phone lines from two of the axes of evil to India must be crackling.

Effectiveness aside, and as a Secy of State she appears to have accomplished not only nothing good, but nothing helpful to the Bush agenda (which is a good thing after all), Rice is a publicly-disclosed LIAR. She has on more than one occasion demonstrated a willingness to lie to cover for Bush, acts that should, in a just world, make her an aider and abettor in Bush's many crimes against the world and us here at home.

In a just world, which we may yet create, Condoleeza Rice would be made to answer for her crimes. And altho the creators of a just world would not hang her, they would ensure she was not free to do any more damage to humanity.

And morale at the State Department IS plummeting. No deputy secretary, no counselor... the rats are fleeing the ship.