Now He Tells Us

Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor for The Washington Post, has a reasonably perceptive column up following his meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Rice, he notes, is quite persuasive in terms of pointing out shortcomings of the old approach to Middle East policy. Her preferred replacement strategy, however, is shot-through with logical and factual problems and, in essence, stands no chance of working.

All fair enough. But so why has Hiatt spent the past five years supporting the Bush/Rice foreign policy and lashing out at liberals for being insufficiently enthusiastic about the blinkered pseudo-push for pseudo-democracy?

Comments

That was my reaction, too. Nice of Hiatt to finally ask some of the questions he should have been asking four years, 3000 American lives, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives ago.

To quote Hiatt: Rice noted that administration insiders had debated before the war whether it would be "good enough to overthrow Saddam Hussein and replace him with a strongman," and had decided emphatically no, and had understood even then that the democracy-building alternative would be difficult.

But then why did they not share that with the public? And why did they fail so abjectly and repeatedly to prepare for the difficulties?

Why not, indeed? I asked these questions before the war; so did plenty of others. They were pretty obvious questions even then.

Posted by RT | December 18, 2006 9:28 AM

same question, back to front: why is Hiatt turning on Rice now?

maybe she's about to resign to spend more time with her family--or less time with her husband.

if Hiatt has been given word that she's heading the way of Rumsfeld, he might also now have permission to savage her.

Posted by kid bitzer | December 18, 2006 9:34 AM

Hiatt: You can't help but be impressed as you listen to Rice discourse ...

I can help it. Rice has been so willfully ignorant in the past that I have to assume anything she says is grounded in this deliberate stupidness. And that's the charitable point of view.

Posted by Robert the Red | December 18, 2006 11:07 AM

long ago and far away, when i was a mere adolescent, i was watching firing line with my mother one evening, and she said something about how "smart" bill buckley was (and my mother is a liberal, btw). i said "no, mom, he's articulate, but if he were smart, everything he said would make much more sense than it does."

that's the story with rice as well....

Posted by howard | December 18, 2006 11:18 AM

That's a great line, Howard. Still, you shouldn't talk back to your mother.

Posted by Steve | December 18, 2006 11:20 AM

I can help it. Rice has been so willfully ignorant in the past that I have to assume anything she says is grounded in this deliberate stupidness. And that's the charitable point of view.

Indeed. Anyone taking her intellect seriously after that "birth pangs of a new Middle East" crap should have his head examined.

Posted by RT | December 18, 2006 8:09 PM