I am trying to finish Bob Woodward's horrible book "State of Denial".

[Dhalgren]

I came across a funny little passage that struck me as...well, I'm not sure what.

The passage was regarding Blackwill's concern that the President didn't understand what was happening in Iraq. Blackwill is a long-time CIA man who was Bremer's number two guy in the coalition's Imperial directorate. He was trying to get Condie to talk to Bush about it, but he held back. He said that Condie had put up "a wall" around her relationship to the President and that he (Blackwill) didn't want to "pierce the special relationship she had with the President". What the hell is that? Does that sound "funny" to anyone else? What is this "special relationship" between Condie and Bush and why would she put "a wall" around it?

[waiting for hope]

1. Damn - I can't wait until

we get some grown ups in office - really, doesn't that sound so childish and school like to you?

[Bucky]

4. You don't have to read something sexual there. It may not be. It's more like....

....well, anyway, it reminds me of how alcoholic families conspire to hide the disease of one of their family members. Don't discuss facts, don't discuss external realities that may upset compromised relationships, don't upset daddy (or in this case, "don't upset junior"). She, Josh Bolton, and Karl Rove seem to function as surrogate parents, babysitting the president and insulating him from unpleasant truths.

I've never quite bought into the full "my hub- the president" theory about Dr Rice. If there is such a relationship, it would be a bit Oedipal on his part. And frankly not even his sick psyche could go there.

if you know what I mean

[Stuckinthebush]

2. Condi is a tragic figure

She truly is a very intelligent woman who had enormous potential. At some point, she fell in with the Bush cabal and became George's mother figure. She has taken this role very seriously, and I'd imagine, she has justified her actions as being someone who could slow down this petulant man-boy. It is such a shame because she never will be able to get out from under the shadow of this sad family. Her beginnings were in a civil-rights era Birmingham, and she was friends with many who fought the good fight (and some died). She could have been a powerful force for good in this world, but by associating with such low-life characters, she was brought down to their level.

Now, she is nothing but a complicit actor in the crimes committed by little George. Her "wall" is all that keeps George's id from completely overtaking his super ego (I think I got that Freudian stuff right!).

She is the saddest person in the administration, but she continues to trudge onward because she has traveled too far with the man.

[Bucky]

5. This intelligent woman is all book smarts and utterly lacking common sense.

She loses, forgets, or fails to read critical security memos--screw ups that have led to people dying and missed diplomatic opportunities. She's led a pampered life consulting for fat cat corporations and sitting on corporate boards due to sucking up to the right people in the first Bush maladministration. The ongoing travesty that is her national service is a not a sudden accident that just happened because she's loyal to the Bushes. Dr. Rice has carefully cultivated her own tragedy and fostered it with her own greed, ambition, and denial.

I won't shed a tear for her. She's as big a screw up as her boss.

[Forrest Greene]

8. Intelligence

...does not equal wisdom.

[Marr]

9. I don't think she's very intelligent. I think she

knows how to project a certain professional facade, and that can take you a long way. But intelligent...? No, I don't think so. She's made too many ridiculously illogical and reality-denying statements to ever be considered intelligent.

She's just another corporate "yes man". Just another stooge, no better than an Ari Fleischer or a Scooter Libby. She's a tad darker and a good deal more female than those two, but she inspires no more sympathy in me.

[vogonity]

3. There is a similar passage in the Chanderaskaran book.

I don't have "Imperial Life In The Emerald City" with me at the moment, but there is a very similar passage in that book that refers to someone appealing to Rice to convice Bush* of something. It uses very similar language, stating that Rice and * have a "special relationship." It sounded kind of funny to me. It struck me as one of those references that speaks volumes without actually saying anything. To be clear, I think it was a veiled reference to a possible affair between Rice and *.

[underpants]

6. Suskind in "The One Percent Doctrine" too

Suskind details how they purposely put up a wall to shield Bush against anything that would get him impeached. Basically they knew they were lying and breaking the law so they established a way of keeping Bush at arm's length away from information and actions so he couldn't be held accountable.

Also nothing NOTHING said in the same room as Bush is EVER to be said to anyone else. That rule goes for everyone and there will be no exceptions made. NONE.

[Dhalgren]

7. The thing about Woodward's book is that the whole damned

administration comes off as stupid. There were numerous mid-level operatives who were trying like crazy to get someone - anyone - to listen to them and no one would. Woodward just relates this shit as though it were the most common occurrence in the world. No one was in charge of anything. Bush was the Cheerleader who had no clue of what was happening, Cheney seemed to be someone who worked in a fantasy world where he actually understood everything that was happening and it was all good. Rice was the Hand-Wringer-In-Chief and was constantly telling underlings to "handle it" when anything came up of a serious nature. Rumsfeld comes off badly as a self-centered infighter who only cared about who got credit and who took blame. Powell is shown as only caring about how he could get out of sharing any blame and maintaining his "image" in history. Armitage is just a stooge, as is Libby. It is all seen as somehow unavoidable and just the way thing s are. Woodward's book is the single worst indictment of this criminal administration and Woodward doesn't even seem to know it!

[underpants]

10. That sounds likely but it counterdicts other stuff that I have read

The letter from John DiIulio to Suskind portrays a nonexistent policy apparatus where the young hotshot staffers reports are repeatedly shunned "We already made that decision" they were told.

Seems that they knew what they wanted to do (empty the treasury, raid the public trusts, invade Iraq) so the little policy stuff is unneccesary. Once they had achieved their goals they were just putting out fires as they say but the fires kept getting bigger and bigger so they started blaming the underlings for not putting them out. Now the chiefs are completely ate up and they have lost all control.

I think it was in "Fiasco" (or was it "One Percent"?) where the staffers have just run amok yelling and screaming down any and all who manage to get inside. I really need to stop reading 3 books at a time. Anyway taken together all these insights tell me that their K.I.S.S. method of governing is really just all politics it is all based on winning the next news cycle and it has blown up in their face.

I totally buy that about Libby. His "bad memory" excuse is really lame. He is supposed to be the brightest any of them had ever seen unreplaceable and so forth. Maybe to them he is bright (compared to say Doug Feith) but that isn't saying much.

BTW Powell always comes out clean. That is his #1 job and so far he has been able to get people to ignore what he can't get them to sugarcoat and he and Woodward have probably known one another for a very long time.

That depiction of Rummy is consistent with what we learn in "Fiasco".

I know through someone a person who knows Condi and they praise her as being oh so brilliant. Maybe she is but I have yet to see her do anything that hasn't been either completely misguided or a horrific "can't see the forrest for the trees". There was a video of her playing piano at a Kuala Lampur international conference and it appeared that her supposed prodigy status is as overblown as her "championship ice skater" story...that is a champion ice skater...black female champion ice skater...in the early 60's ....in ALABAMA. She is a "Sovietologist" which means she is as relevant as a typewriter repairman.