Has there been a Secretary of State that was less effective than

[WCGreen]

Madame Rice...

Ever since she took over, she has been marginalized to a degree that hasn't been seen since Kissinger was the National Security Adviser when Bill Rogers was Nixon's SOS...

She sure travels a lot...

Lot's of pic debarking from a plane and waving at the baggage handlers...

But substance, not so much...

BTW, I do like her new hairdo, it softens he look just a bit...

[AnneD]

1. Not in my active memory...

and my memory stretches back to Kennedy.

[MistressOverdone]

2. I hear she plays a great piano, though.

[WCGreen]

3. She can play the minute Waltz in fifty seconds...

[tblue]

10. I heard it was 45

[Colobo]

4. She is not the problem. The problem is the people she's representing and their policies.

[WCGreen]

7. Then she is at least part of the problem since she helped

design and impliment the administrations policy...

[Colobo]

11. I don't give her that much credit

The people running the show are not the ones that do the talking.

[tblue]

15. Say what? She's no dummy. She knows exactly what she's doing and she chose these people to

hitch her wagon to. And she has had plenty of time to unhitch herself if she didn't realize at the start what they were about. Nobody held a gun to her head. She's no innocent young impressionable thing, and she alone is responsible for what she does.


Read this:
It’s STILL The Oil: Secret Condi Meeting on Oil Before Invasion

Condoleezza Rice held a secret meeting with the former Secretary-General of OPEC, Fadhil Chalabi, an Iraqi, and offered Chalabi the job of Oil Minister for Iraq.

/snip
http://www.gregpalast.com/its-still-the-oilsecret-condi-meeting-on-oil-before-invasion/

[leftofthedial]

5. I don't think there has ever been a less competent member of a Cabinet

she was a disaster as "national security advisor" and has been a joke as SOS

[MissWaverly]

6. considering that she has had two major cabinet roles

her impact on a positive level has been zilch, from National Security Adviser to
Secretary of State it has been a loss. At least the talk about her running for president
has ended.

[WCGreen]

8. Maybe she could handle the Commerce Department next...

[MissWaverly]

18. No, Agriculture, make them alphabetical to make it easier

to remember.

[sutz12]

9. I'd say she fits right in with this group.

The only things they 'succeed' at cost billions of bux and thousands of lives.

[saltpoint]

12. She seems negligible, the diplomatic equivalent of meringue.

When you abandon Brahms, you forsake all chance there might have been for renewal and resonance. Condiliar traded away her 88 ivories for those glorious power weekends down in Crawford with Dubya and the boys. My god what was she thinking?

The woman is a Russian expert, her education gearing her for the Cold War, which ended long before she took office at NSC or State. She's a has-been, or a never-was.

She dresses nicely. Her hair's dandy. But all I see is a scowl, a wide, primal scowl,

... and it never comes off!

[eleny]

13. This brings back what Donald Trump told Blitzer last week...

Rice never makes a deal. She goes to other countries, has the side by side photo ops but never sits eyeball to eyeball with heads of state and makes deals. You have to make deals!

This was my paraphrase, of course. But you get the jist. Trump looked and sounded frustrated by Rice.

[louis-t]

16. You beat me by 2 minutes.

Rats!

[eleny]

21. Great minds thinking alike!

[MissWaverly]

19. I remember when Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq

It was such a surprise that Maliki did not know he was coming, so he was there only 8 minutes, what could you arrange in 8 minutes, if you go out for dinner, it takes you that
long to park and to get to a table at the restaurant, world affairs in 10 minutes or less.

[eleny]

22. You make a good point that relates to Rice, too

W doesn't want deals. He wants photo ops. And in the case of Maliki - maybe he just wanted another slice of shock n' awe.

[MissWaverly]

25. Yes, exactly, he wanted to say that he been to Iraq

he neglected to mention that it was just a drive through.

[OnyxCollie]

14. I loved when Donald Trump ripped on her.

"All she does is wave. She never makes any deals. All she does is wave!"

[tblue]

17. Yeah, but she carries water for some really bad people, too. Tho I like what the Donald said, too

[eleny]

24. Queen Rice!

[Lobster Martini]

20. Nomination for the Worst SoS and All You Need to Know About Condi's Hair

I could make a pretty good argument for Alexander "I'm in control here" Haig being the worst Secretary of State in recent memory. And here's all you need to know about Condi's hairdo, including a color coded alert system: http://sparklepony.blogspot.com/.

[CJCRANE]

23. Her MO

seems to be to wait for some disaster or crisis to happen (like 9/11 or Israeli invasion of Lebanon) and then say it was a "catalytic event". And that's about it.

[JNelson6563]

26. Attila, I hear he started out in Hun State Dept.

;-)

[Morgana LaFey]

27. I never got the idea she was SUPPOSED to be effective

:shrug:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

28. You could also ask.......

Has there been a SOS more damaging than Condi?

As a mouthpiece for *, I think she has carried his ideas abroad...

To our detriment...

I don't see that she has been marginalized at all.


Edited to add: K&R

[Rydz777]

29. When she first appeared on the scene

we were told that, given her academic background in Soviet Studies, she spoke fluent Russian. Then I noted that in all her trips to Moscow she uses an interpreter or has a translation wire hanging from her ear. So does el Arbusto whom we were told speaks Spanish. Our "leadership" is like a P. T. Barnum show, hype and pretense.

[kineneb]

30. only thing she does is support foreign shoe industry

otherwise she seems pretty useless... just another Bushie crony.

[Major Hogwash]

31. Who was Reagan's 1st Secretary of State?

If you said General Alexander "I'm in charge" Haig, then you would be correct.

He was less effective than even Condi is.

Out the door in just 1 year.

Shortest tenure of any living cabinet member of any President in more than 20 years, I think.

[AshevilleGuy]

32. Dean Rusk was kept tethered pretty well

by JFK and LBJ. It just seemed like he was told exactly what to do and say. I was a kid but that is how it seemed to me.

[Grandrose]

33. Rice is doing her job......

exactly nothing and that's the way they want it.
The personification of Peters' Principle!:evilgrin: