From James Wolcott: Rice and No Beans
It is fitting and proper that Condi Rice replace Colin Powell as Secretary of State. Putting a black face on the rock formation of white arrogance and prerogative represented by Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-et-al shows a shrewd consistency. But the face that Powell fronted for Bush's diplomatic charades was an open, amiable, somewhat ambiguous one. It offered the faint hope that someone in the administration could be reasoned with and would convey allies' concerns back to the Cowboy Jesus, that there was at least one listener in the bunch.
That illusion is gone. Rice's face is the game face of the Bushies, bony with Unwavering Resolve, eyes fanatical, mouth tensed. She has shown herself to be not a listener but a dictation machine on playback. 'The President believes...' 'The President has always said...' 'The President has very consistent in arguing that...' 'The President has said all along...' And now the dictation machine is in a position to dictate to other nations how they can fight terror and help make America a bigger, better empire. It'll be the President wants this, the President wants that, the President is firm in his belief that...
But her incompetence precedes her, as does her presumptuous statement that for their failure to support the U.S. in Iraq, France should be punished, Germany ignored, and Russia forgiven. Punished, ignored, and forgiven for being right in the first place and refusing to take part in this debacle?--such nerve.
From Liberal Oasis: Fry Rice
So let's get this straight, once and for all.
It is not simply the President's personal Cabinet. It is America's Cabinet.
There are other positions, like National Security Adviser and director of the Office of Management and Budget, that do simply serve the President and are not subject to Senate confirmation and supervision.
But that's not the Cabinet. Those folks are more important and accountable to more than just the President.
That's why it's a Cabinet, and not a Politburo.
. . .
The kinds of questions that need to be posed to Rice, by senators and the media (and if Senators consistently raise them, the media will likely follow) are:
* Are you planning to purge the State Department like how Porter Goss is purging the CIA?
* It appears that people who have disagreements with Bush are the ones to be targeted in any housecleaning, but shouldn't those who raised concerns about the quality of Iraq intelligence and argued for better post-war planning be getting promotions and not pink slips?
* If the President can't handle straight talk from his diplomatic corps that doesn't jibe with his worldview, and he doesn't read the newspapers, how will he know what's going on in the word?
From the L.A. Times: Bush, Rice Are Tightly Bound by Experience
"The main element is trust," said a close associate who has watched Rice and the president work together firsthand and spoke on condition of anonymity. "I've worked for a lot of top executives. When they don't trust you, they don't call you. He calls her all the time."
Rice's ability to become an almost clone-like extension of the president — to understand what he wants, to make her only agenda his agenda and to carry out his wishes with unfailing loyalty — has made her invaluable.
"The president does rely on her. If she's not literally the first person he talks to every morning, it's close," said Coit D. Blacker, one of Rice's closest friends, who worked with her during her time as provost at Stanford University. "I think that will continue. They're deeply influential on each other.
. . .
Wherever she goes and whomever she's talking to, admirers and critics agreed, Rice has exercised unusual power because she has had only one agenda and spoken in only one voice: the president's.
. . .
On Capitol Hill, Democrats and Republicans said that when she spoke, it was Bush's positions she expressed. Indeed, Sen. John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) complained that even in secret briefings, she never deviated from the White House line.
Others agreed.
"She is remarkably effective in being a very attractive mirror for whomever she is working with," said a foreign policy specialist who had known Rice for 20 years and who spoke on condition of anonymity.
. . .
Rice served in [Bush's] father's administration, and Brent Scowcroft, who was President George H.W. Bush's national security advisor, saw Rice as a rising star and repeatedly arranged for her to have contact with his boss.
The elder Bush came to admire her, and eventually Rice was invited to the Bush family's summer compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, as a houseguest.
In 1998, when Gov. Bush met with a group of Stanford academics to discuss policy issues, Rice — then provost — took part. She made such a good impression on the younger Bush that he invited her to follow-up briefings in Texas.
That August she was asked back to Kennebunkport. The governor was there too.
Rice and the younger Bush went fishing together and worked out on treadmills, rowing machines and other fitness equipment at the Bush compound. "Over a few days, the son of the former president and the protege of the former national security advisor tested each other," James Mann said in his book "The Rise of the Vulcans," a detailed account of how the Bush foreign policy team was forged.
Before long, the governor made Rice his chief foreign policy advisor for the 2000 campaign. Other experts would be added later, but Rice's personal relationship set her apart. And once the two entered the White House, it only grew stronger.
Said Scowcroft: "It's probably as close a relationship as any that's ever been between an NSA and the president.
"She's fun to be with. I like lighthearted people, not people who take themselves so seriously that they are hard to be around. Besides, she's really smart!"
- George W. Bush
* Okoge: Japanese word that describes the crust of burned rice left in the bottom of a rice cooker; also, pejorative description of a woman who prefers the company of gay men (in American slang, a "fag hag").
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