Condoleeza just did it...

[BobT]

Condoleezza did it

[rjung]

@Eve

I want to know why she wasn’t fired after the 9/11 hearings, rather than being promoted.

That’s how things work in the Bush Administration. When you screw up, you get promoted.

[Czarcasm]

Moving thread from IMHO to Great Debates.

[Lumpy]

Another vote for “she’s gotta’ be Bush’s secret mistress”. OK, I know that’s unfair, but somehow I’m obsessed by the idea. In a perverse way I want it to be true.

[John_Mace]

@you with the face

There’s no mystery about why she was chosen. I mean, the woman has served 4 years as Bush’s national security advisor, which is certainly enough time for Dubya to figure out if she’s the kind of person he wants on his team. Nothing stinks in her resume. She’s fluent in 4 foreign languages and has letters behind her name. Her good rapport with the president is a well-known fact. It’s not as if she just strolled in off the street and was handed the job. In my opinion, her qualifications are probably the one thing that shouldn’t be in dispute.

Her relationship with Bush (Sr and Jr) goes back a lot longer than just the last 4 years. She’s reputed to be Jr’s closest adviser. Her negative is that her experience from way back is Soviet affairs, but I would presume she’s had a lot of on-the-job training re the Middle East.

[rjung]

She’s got an oil tanker after her.

Wouldn’t surprise me if, in Dubya’s eyes, that makes her an object of lust…

[grayhairedmomma]

@Ghanima

Bush can now use her as a mouthpiece. Liberals who refuse to listen to him are more likely to listen to her because she’s a black woman.

Why would you think that after we just spent 4 years watching her be a subpar NSA, that she would have credibility now? Her minority status isn’t going to change her history.

[mack]

@Ghanima

Liberals who refuse to listen to him are more likely to listen to her because she’s a black woman. Also it makes her less vulnerable to liberal attacks. I think it may be that simple.

Or not. Remember the 9/11 commission hearings? Nobody’s cutting her slack because she’s a black woman. Please.

She was picked because she’s on the team. If you’re a fan of Bush administration foreign policy, it’s a great choice. Everybody’s on the same page…which is not a good thing if you’re not a fan of Bush administration foreign policy.

[Ghanima]

Why would you think that after we just spent 4 years watching her be a subpar NSA, that she would have credibility now?

Well, because people are stupid. I stand by my theory that there definitely people out there who if they saw Bush would change the channel, but if they saw her making the same statements they would be far more likely to listen. I’m not saying these are the intelligentsia of our country.

[Loopydude]

I think the main issue for Condi may be managerial skills. She’s eminently qualified in the realm of smarts and knowledge; but State is not the NSC. It’s a massive, fairly horizontal beaurocracy with a lot of petty feifdoms. Supposedly she did a fairly poor job of managing internal conflicts in her former job; and those sorts of problems are going to be more accute for trying replace Powell and Armitage (who were much beloved by the Under Secretaries and sundry embassadors, reportedly). She reportedly has had some conflicts with Armitage in the recent past, so unless they really clean house in State, she’s going to be dealing with a lot of subordinates who don’t respect her authority, and have little incentive to play nice.

[David_Simmons]

@rjung

Not in public – Powell always kept his disputes in private

Maybe as Secretary of State, but not as Chairman of the JCS.

He publicly disagreed with Clinton’s original stand on gays in the military, using the same arguments as had been advanced against Truman’s desegregation of the armed forces.

What he did was insubordination in my view but Clinton was too unfamiliar with military protocol and uncertain of his power to tell him to either resign or carry out the policy.

So it would seem to me that Powell was only “good soldier Powell” when it suited him.

[David_Simmons]

And here’s a cite that confirms Powell’s public refusal to carry out the Commander in Chief’s policy.

"Clinton faced powerful military … opposition to lifting the ban. Gen. Colin Powell, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff … announced that [he] would seek to block … attempts to lift the ban.

[Zagadka]

@Diogenes the Cynic

A perfect example of somebody failing upwards…kind of like Bush.

Never mind gravity defiance, I think NASA needs to install instruments in everyone in the Bush Administration, just to figure out how the bloody hell they manage to still be alive, given the amount of bungling they do

[furt]

@ShibbOleth

(remember the “my husband” gaffe, anyone?).

No. Linkage?

[David_Simmons]

@mack

She was picked because she’s on the team.

Bush seems to be picking a new cabinet composed mainly of sychophantic staffers who automatically give an unquestioning “yes” on all occasions.

Others have mentioned that Cabinet officers carry out the President’s policies. That’s true, but those policies ought to be thoroughly examined by competent and skeptical staffers before being put into action.

[rjung]

@David Simmons

So it would seem to me that Powell was only “good soldier Powell” when it suited him.

Well, he is a Republican…

[MMI]

Based on her pre-2000 resume and adding four years as NSA - yeah, of course she’s qualified, whatever that means. That doesn’t mean that over the past four years she has established herself as a straight shooter or any sort of independent voice (though one may hope she is both behind the scenes).

That said, it is unlikely that I would be thrilled with anyone Bush is likely to appoint to state. And if I did admire them prior to appointment, it is unlikely that such respect would survive their tenure (see Powell, Colin). The Bush model of government is very hierarchical, so any independent voice is unlikely to remain vocal and employed. (My objection to this is no doubt more to the current apex of the hierarchy than to the model itself)

Still, I find Condi to be on the whole inoffensive, compared to her new deputy Bolton.

[mack]

@furt

No. Linkage?

http://nymetro.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/intelligencer/n_10245/

At a recent dinner party hosted by New York Times D.C. bureau chief Philip Taubman and his wife, Times reporter Felicity Barringer, and attended by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Maureen Dowd, Steven Weisman, and Elisabeth Bumiller, Rice was reportedly overheard saying, “As I was telling my husb—” and then stopping herself abruptly, before saying, “As I was telling President Bush.” Jaws dropped, but a guest says the slip by the unmarried politician, who spends weekends with the president and his wife, seemed more psychologically telling than incriminating. Nobody thinks Bush and Rice are actually an item. A National Security Council spokesman laughed and said, “No comment.”