Rice does not deserve to be Secretary of State

The thirteen senators who voted against the nomination of Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State are listed at Lucianne.com, as though they had done something shameful. Given the unhinged nature of the Democratic left nowadays, and the kinds of puerile complaints we heard from the likes of Barbara Boxer, that is probably the case. However, I must say that I would have voted against Rice, too. She is a smug, platitude-spouting mediocrity whom I have never heard make a single statement showing any particular knowledge, insight, or intellectual distinction. She carries a major share of the responsibility—perhaps the major share—for the catastrophe in which we find ourselves in Iraq. Check out Richard Lowry’s cover article, “What Went Wrong,” in National Review from last October, where he says that the pre-invasion failure to relate the disparate bits of information about Iraq together and to bring the contradictory aspects of our policy into a coherent whole can be attributed to only two people: Bush and Rice. Why should her incompetence be rewarded by her elevation to the highest position in the executive department after the presidency itself? Making Rice the Secretary of State is the moral equivalent of (though in practical terms is obviously much worse than) giving George Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 26, 2005 03:18 PM | Send