Rice's Legacy So Far-- a real WOWser from Froomkin

Rice's Legacy So Far

Warren P. Strobel writes for McClatchy Newspapers that "Rice comes to Middle East peace negotiations relatively late, having downplayed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while she was national security adviser and spent her first years as secretary of state pushing Arab democracy as the cure to the region's woes."

How did that work out for her? Not so well.

In an excerpt from her new Rice biography, New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller describes how the radical Islamic movement Hamas's sweeping victory in Palestinian elections in January 2006 caught Rice flat-footed.

"Ms. Rice, who had heralded the election as a symbol of the new stirrings of democracy in the Middle East, was so blindsided by the victory that she was startled when she saw a crawl of words on her television screen while exercising on her elliptical trainer the morning after the election: 'In wake of Hamas victory, Palestinian cabinet resigns.'

"'I thought, "Well, that's not right," Ms. Rice recalled. When the crawl continued, she got off the elliptical trainer and called the State Department.

"'I said, "What happened in the Palestinian elections?"' Ms. Rice recalled. 'And they said, "Oh, Hamas won." And I thought, "Oh my goodness, Hamas won?"'

"Ms. Rice's credibility was further damaged when she delayed calling for a cease-fire as Israel plunged into a two-front war in Lebanon and Gaza that summer."

Rice's boss shared her naïveté. Kessler and Abramowitz write: "Leverett recalled that, in 2002, Bush said in the White House situation room that once a Palestinian leadership was democratically elected, it would concentrate on providing services to its constituents and 'you would get a Palestinian leadership less hung up' on such issues as borders and Jerusalem.

"Leverett, (Flynt Leverett, Rice's former top aide on Middle East issues)who has become a fierce Bush critic, said he was shocked at Bush's comment at the time. 'It was one of the most profoundly ignorant statements anyone has ever uttered on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,' he said."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/11/26/BL2007112601031_pf.html

Same Shit...different question.....DUUUUH!!!!

:eyes:

She is like the person who walks into the party and yells out "Was I the only one who didn't know about this party!?!?" as everyone looks into their cups in the awkwardness of the one person no one wanted there showing up. Out of kindness no one tells her.

I find it amazing that 9/11 happened on her watch and America didn't hang her for treasonous incompetance. But, fortunately, no one in United States government lost their jobs as a result of 9/11.

At least the 9/11 commission correctly identified the real culprit as "lack of imagination"

:sarcasm:

-85% Jimmy