The blind advising the blind

In calling Condoleezza Rice the twin brain of President Bush over the years, I meant that she has the same views and attitudes as Bush on everything and backs him up on everything. But as indicated in a New York Times profile of her, the intellectual similarity covers not just what Bush and Rice think but their manner of thinking, or rather their refusal to think. Bush, I’ve pointed out (see this and this), reaches his decisions through what he calls gut instinct, then validates them with prayer—never, according to his own account, employing critical reason at any time in the process. Similarly, the Times says about Rice:

[H]er friends say that she rarely questions whether she is right or wrong, instead choosing to believe in a particular truth with absolute certainty until she doesn’t believe it anymore, at which point she moves on.

As a female character said in the short-lived dark-comedy tv series “Mary” in the mid 1980s, “I’m so confused and disoriented all the time—and that’s not good when you’re a city planner.” In the same way we could say of Rice: “She never questions whether her views are right or wrong—and that’s not good when you’re the chief foreign policy advisor to the leader of the most powerful nation on earth planning a pre-emptive war of conquest on and the democratization of a tribally divided Muslim country.”

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Terry M. writes:

Yes; it seems like the whole reason to have an advisor is for the purpose of their being able to advise you on something they should be more knowledgable about. The Bible makes it clear that it is wise to surround oneself with a multitude of counselors. But the whole concept of counsel implies a transmission of a higher degree of knowledge and insight.

Alex A. writes:

Condoleezza Rice seems to float above the fray like a benign fairy, and we are continuously reassured by a fawning media that she’s a very clever woman etc. But with the exception of this blog, her intellectual abilities, political shrewdness, and good intentions are seldom examined with critical detachment.

Would it be indelicate to suggest she is given the benefit of any doubt on the irrelevant grounds that she’s a woman, and she’s black?

LA replies:

It would not be indelicate to suggest it, but it would also not necessarily be true in all cases. As shown by this information that was passed on at the Corner, liberals will excuse everything about you if you’re a black, unless you’re a black Republican like Condoleezza Rice.

Also, here is my summary of my case against her, posted two years ago.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 01, 2007 08:21 AM | Send