Critical Weakness

From Glenn Kessler's profile of Condoleezza Rice in the Post:

In this effort, Rice's bond with Bush has emerged as her key asset -- but possibly also her critical weakness. It has made her the president's top foreign policy confidante and helped her cultivate a public image imbued with power and influence. But at the same time, friends and former colleagues marvel at how Rice has been transformed by the president she so devotedly serves -- from a hardheaded foreign policy "realist" to a wholehearted supporter of Bush's belief in the power of freedom and democracy.

But, of course, this wouldn't be a weakness at all if the beliefs to which Rice converted herself hadn't proven to be catastrophic failures. But into that context, Rice's critical weakness is less her loyalty, than her advocacy of incredibly misguided policies.

Comments

Rice is committed to democratization? Hardly, except as an ersatz-rationale for the war in Iraq after no weapons of mass destruction materialized. Last year she rolled out the red carpet for the dictator of Equatorial Guinea, Obiang Nguesso, who sits atop some of the largest oil reserves in Africa. Rice uttered nary a word of criticism about this government that presides over the second highest per capita GDP in the world after Luxembourg, but whose population still suffers widespread malnutrition. There are plenty of other examples of oil dictators getting a pass from this administration. So let's end the B.S. about Bush and Rice being promoters of democracy.

And part of that is ending the type of criticism from Matthew here about how the policy of promoting democracy abroad has failed - as if it had even been tried by this administration. Why accept Bush's framing of his foreign policy? By embracing democratization rhetoric and then ignoring it in practice, Bush has done more to set back efforts to support democratization abroad than he would have by embracing his papa's realpolitik. Matthew, why do you take him at his word?

Posted by Eric | September 3, 2007 11:33 AM

Correction to my comment above: the dictator of Equatorial Guinea is Obiang Nguema (not Nguesso, who is the dictator of the Republic of Congo).

Posted by Eric | September 3, 2007 11:42 AM

Who is more the fool?
Who is more the fool?
The fool or the fool
Who follows the fool?

Posted by anonymous | September 3, 2007 11:51 AM

MATT, INCREASE THE FONT ON YOUR BLOG, THE CURRENT FONT MAKES IT HARD TO READ.

Posted by El Loco | September 3, 2007 12:06 PM

she's transformed from a cold-hearted realist into a true believer in the power of goodness.

Posted by jonathan | September 3, 2007 12:29 PM

El Loco, press "ctrl +" to increase the font.

Posted by JA | September 3, 2007 12:30 PM

The Bush Administration certainly appreciates the propaganda value of the words, "freedom and democracy." But the Bush Administration has been an overwhelming setback to both concepts.

Of course, his true beliefs are ultimately unknowable. We can't read his mind. Judging by his actions, and the outcome of everything he's touched, I think the throwaway line, "This would be a lot easier in a dictatorship, so long as I'm the dictator," is closer to the truth than anything.

Everyone but me, it seems, thought he was joking.

Posted by Jalmari | September 3, 2007 12:35 PM

Matt, if Condi had held on to her judgment she wouldn't HAVE her special relationship with Bush.

Condi's story is an old one: the wise counselor who loses her head because of the lure of power.

Yes, Condi & Bush get along (they like to use sports metaphors, etc), but they key weakness in Condi is that she will flatter power in exchange for influence.

Is she so bewitched by the King that she has lost her own judgment? Or is she aware of the intellectual compromises she is making but justifies them? None of us can see into Condi's head, so we don't know. In the end it doesn't much matter.

Condi's central weakness is that she is drunk on power. This is a vice. It is much more polite to instead ascribe her with an excess of virtue (loyalty).

Kessler does not have the courage to tell it like it is. If you think I am too harsh ask yourself these questions: Would Bush and Condi have their special relationship if she had held her ground intellectually? Did Bush persuade Condi through insightful judgment and mastery of facts?

The questions answer themselves, don't they?

Posted by tomtom | September 3, 2007 12:36 PM

The "The Selling of a Cabinet Official" aspect of the story is unreal. Our media really does suck, and I don't quite understand why. (No, please don't tell me. I've heard the standard answers.)

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | September 3, 2007 12:44 PM

Matt, I would be careful about a blanket statement like "proven to be a catastrophic failure."

The motive force behind the Iraq War was not "spreading democracy and freedom." It was not even "preemption."

No, the true determinant of the Iraq War was a new security doctrine called "prevention." "Democracy" was never more than a primary mitigating factor, a fig leaf that, it was hoped, would agreeably cover the hard, throbbing, naked truth of our new assertiveness ("Only a dick can fuck an asshole").

But even then, what you list as "proven" remains theory. And while "It will fail!" is a persuasive theory, even compelling, it is not yet fact.

I recall Alexander Pope:
"Immodest words admit of no defense,
For want of modesty is want of sense."

Posted by JA | September 3, 2007 12:46 PM

Quite frankly, I don't think Condi's inner thoughts matter a fig as to her lagacy.

What matters is, whether 'realist' or 'idealist', she is stunningly incompetent. THAT is her legacy. Can anyone name a WORSE National Security Advisor ('who could have foreseen people flying planes into buildings?')

Yet incompetence blooms as success in the Bush Administration. For her less than mediocre efforts (and that's being charitable) she wangled her dream job, Secretary of State, and gave us such gems as 'we are witnessing the birth pangs of a new Middle East', delivered with a smile, no less, while her ill-conceived strategy and policy came crashing down around her.

As Sydney Blumenthal once said of her, 'She is a shuttle without the diplomacy'.

It makes me wonder if all this is a racist Republican plot. Condi has done for blac affirmative action what Gonzales has done for Latinos.

I hope her legacy is to go away and never be seen or heard again.

Posted by twit | September 3, 2007 1:00 PM

Rice's other critical weaknes--and this should not be overlooked--is mind-numbing lack of competence.

Posted by ed | September 3, 2007 1:10 PM

Rice's critical weakness is less her loyalty, than her advocacy of incredibly misguided policies.

But she wouldn't have advocated the misguided policies if not for her blind loyalty, right? Or maybe we're reading 'loyalty' in slightly different ways.

Posted by Neil the Ethical Werewolf | September 3, 2007 1:18 PM

I think it's a mistake to assume that you can make sense of these people--high level politicians and policy operatives--independent of their ambition. So I don't know that "loyalty" is the appropriate word. If it is, I don't think it means precisely the same thing as we might mean when applying it normally. Same goes for "competence."

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | September 3, 2007 1:25 PM

Ed, I don;t think I overlooked it. I thought I emphasized it in my post right above yours, or wasn't I clear?

Posted by twit | September 3, 2007 1:27 PM

I think everyone is forgetting that Rice once had a reputation for a certain amount of brains. Unlike other members of the Bush Administration, there's little previous evidence that she was incompetent before entering Bush's orbit. What defines Rice isn't incompetence or "loyalty", it's that she really seems to have no life outside of Bush. She's a sycophant.

Now, everyone who makes it into the Presidency comes with his own collection of sycophants. In the modern era up through Clinton, however, Presidents would keep those folks segregated into the political side of things or keep them around as "advisors". Bush put his sycophants in major policy positions, which leads to disaster because sycophants (no matter what their actual abilities) only care about making their master happy. They can't even look out for his own interests when that might arouse his momentary displeasure.

Mike

Posted by MBunge | September 3, 2007 2:16 PM

If Condi has been paying lip service to interventionism because of loyalty, while (somewhat ineffectively) pushing for more "realist" policies, then loyalty, not policy wrongheadedness, is indeed her biggest weakness.

But that seems like a bit too charitable a reading to me.

Damn, I can't believe I once hugged that woman...

Posted by Mr. Noah | September 3, 2007 4:07 PM

El Loco - try hitting "CTRL and +" and see if you can read the blog better. It works on just about every screen where you find the font too small

Posted by joejoejoe | September 3, 2007 4:09 PM

With all this talk about Rice being 'tranformed' by her bond with Bush, I want to hear her sing:

"Touch-a touch-a touch-a touch me
I wanna be dirty
Thrill me, chill me, fulfill me
Creature of the night"

Posted by gcochran | September 3, 2007 5:03 PM

El Loco - try hitting "CTRL and +" and see if you can read the blog better.

Or just press CTRL and rotate the little wheel on top of your mouse (if it has one). That works, too.

Posted by geaghan | September 3, 2007 5:10 PM

Thanks folks, it worked.

Posted by El Loco | September 3, 2007 5:34 PM

In addition to the main question raised here, it's also hard to see in what sense Condi has any real power.

How many times have I read about her being overruled or undercut by Cheney or Rumsfeld when she's taken a different tack from them? And have there been any initiatives of hers that went anywhere that Bush wouldn't have done anyway? (Hell, has she had any notable initiatives at all?)

I'll second everyone else here on the "freedom and democracy" BS. I doubt that the Administration's most zealous defenders could produce an example of freedom/democracy promotion that wasn't either (a) more naturally explicable by other motivations, (b) almost totally symbolic and without significant positive effect, or (c) canceled out by other clearly antidemocratic actions.

Posted by low-tech cyclist | September 3, 2007 6:21 PM

to me it seems that it would be an easy transistion for a 'realist' in terms of US policy to become a realist for the political concerns of the administration that she serves. That she serves in the worst administration ever has implications all over regarding her judgement, but the hard headed realist doesn't come into play much.

Posted by theCoach | September 3, 2007 11:09 PM

I think everyone is forgetting that Rice once had a reputation for a certain amount of brains. Unlike other members of the Bush Administration, there's little previous evidence that she was incompetent before entering Bush's orbit.

I can't speak for her time at Stanford, but she was an abject failure at everthing else she has done (with the notable and unfortunate exception of self-promotion.) She was a Soviet expert with the NSC when they missed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Think about that. She was at the Asian desk when they missed the nuclearization of South Asia. She was head of "Policy" at Chevron while they illegally violated the Iraq sanctions. She was incompetent before she was the worst National Security Advisor (until the incumbent) and managed to become in short order the worst Secretary of State of all time. "I guess we don't have the pulse of the Palestinian people" after the election of Hamas and "the birth pangs of democracy" about the Lebanon/Israel War to name just two examples of many that would prove her utter stupidity and lack of insight.

Her legacy is secure. How we got here is what we need to fugure out.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | September 4, 2007 2:29 PM