...with leaders such as these, who needs enemies....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at June 27, 2007 8:32 AM

Orwell: "An idea so stupid, only an intellectual could believe it."

Posted by: sounder at June 27, 2007 9:29 AM

Is one required to go through a dhimmification process to work for the state department?

Posted by: Elric66 at June 27, 2007 9:30 AM

This is a tacit admission that Hamas is the more capable of the two Palestinian parties, and the one that is most likely to win given the "rule" of Palestinian politics.

Posted by: Kepha at June 27, 2007 9:46 AM

I would expect no less from the vast majority of people in political power, who are purely ignorant.

Posted by: Rogster at June 27, 2007 9:47 AM

I used to think of Secretary Rice as a Stepford Wife: well kept, attractive, well spoken, well mannered but devoid of substance or a soul of her own.

But with reports like this she shows herself to actually be worse than a well-kept robot.

Posted by: A_Plague_on_Both_Houses at June 27, 2007 9:53 AM

Contrary to what most LGFers think, she is not a "rouge" employee of a "rouge" State Department. She is only carrying out the policies of the Administration. If he so desired, The President could see that Rice stopped these kind of statements. He could refute her more inane statements. He could even replace her.

But President Bush won't do any of these, (to her or other State employees) because he and Rice and State are in accord on foreign policy.

Posted by: Charles Bogle at June 27, 2007 9:57 AM

This is the worst of it, from the transcribed text of her full remarks:

"Well, they [Hamas, Fatah] clearly need to move forward on the issues which are really major issues of reconciliation. Now to be fair to them, this government is just a little over a year old. This is a society that has been dominated by dictatorship and by violent resolution of conflict for most of its history. And you're now asking people to make political compromises and political deals in a way that is going to define, really for now, generations, the relationship between these groups. And that's hard.

When I look at the difficulties that we had in creation of our own republic or even if I look at the difficulties that we have in our legislature of coming to terms on fundamental issues like immigration reform, for instance, in the United States in a mature democracy, I think we're asking them or they're asking themselves to define major issues like how will the resources of the country be shared among groups, issues like how you will deal with the past of de-Baathification, how will you integrate Sunnis into a structure when they essentially boycotted the boat at the time of the elections.

So, they're really, really hard issues and sometimes, we tend to forget that when we say, "Well, why can't they solve them?" That said, they have to solve them, because they are -- this kind of de jure recognition -- reconciliation, I think, is at the core of beginning to really put together a unified Iraqi state that can function. Now I say de jure recognition quite deliberately because the kind of normative reconciliation that we all hope they will come to may take decades. I very often think back to my own experience in Birmingham when, in 1964 and 1965, you had a series of laws that gave de jure desegregation and mixing of the races. It wasn't as if on the day after the Public Accommodations Act passed, everybody thought that mixing of the races was a great idea. But over a long period of time, people respond to those laws, they get accustomed to those laws; they begin to behave on the basis of those laws. And over time, you get normative reconciliation."

Rice loves historical analogies, but the ones she chooses are seldom apposite, and they reveal only her deep incomprehension, both of what present-day events she is analogizing, and what, in the past, she is likening them to. Rice has appallingly compared the Iraqi Constitution, the conditions of its creation and its actual contents, to the document produced in Philadelphia. She compares, that is, the conditions surrounding the composition and adoption of the American Constitution, with the "Iraqi" Constitution, produced by assorted locals and a handful of thrusting young Americans with their eyes on the prize of the futureline-item in their resumes ("Helped write Constitution of Iraq" or "Largely responsible for creation o of the Iraqi Constitution" or "Wrote major portions of the Iraqi Constitution") -- for an example of which, see the inimitable thrusting young academic Noah "After Jihad" Feldman, now making out, in his upward and very mobiel career, like gangbusters. Rice shows ignorance of, and lack of respect for, the genius of the Framers, and the genius of the text they composed.

Just look at that phrase in the transcript above -- "When I look at the difficulties we had in the creation of our own Republic..." She's still, unapologetically, unembarrassedly, in mid-June of 2007, at it. And yet we are supposed to regard Rice with respect. Why?

And her other, just as inapposite comparison, that she loves to trot out, is with her own experience in Birmingham:

"I very often think back to my own experience in Birmingham when, in 1964 and 1965, you had a series of laws that gave de jure desegregation and mixing of the races. It wasn't as if on the day after the Public Accommodations Act passed, everybody thought that mixing of the races was a great idea."

So there she is, comparing the Sunni refusal to acquiesce in the loss of power, and the Shi'a refusal to give in to the Sunnis, as equivalent to those whites who, in her own country, took some time in accepting, with all deliberate speed, desegregation. But the law of the land was clear. And the aggression, violence, victor/vanquished view of the universe -- all of which Islam encourages, and which characterize all societies suffused with Islam -- go far beyond anything in Condoleezza Rice's experience.

Again, she gropes for analogies, finds the wrong ones, and yet never seems troubled by them, never seems to ponder what might be wrong with them.

But the bigger problem is her boss. Impressionable, he is mightily impressed with her. Not very intelligent, but a sentimentalist about race and ethnicity (as his revealing remarks on immigration show)-- even as he remains a stout and unthinking defender of economic privilege, he exhibits a deep admiration for "Condi" that one knows is prompted byher being an "Afro-American woman" who has made it, to the top. But she has made it to the top by being en tailleur, well-coiffed, moderately well-spoken, and above all, by being not imaginative but dutiful, never taking real issue, never questioning or going beyond, and certainly not having undertaken any study of Islam, or of Iraq, that might have been such a help.

It is not Bush alone who is paying for her errors of understanding, judgment, and failures of imagination -- errors that reinforce those of her admiring boss. It is all the soldiers in Iraq. It is the citizens at home. All of us.

Posted by: Hugh at June 27, 2007 10:15 AM

If Rice so disagreed with what the whitehouse thinks, she could resign.

Posted by: Elric66 at June 27, 2007 10:58 AM

Thanks for the post Hugh!

That is what I kind of suspected of Condi. The sad thing is, nobody respects her anymore: not the enemy, not the allied. She's just another in the long line of Bush disappointments.

Posted by: never_submit at June 27, 2007 11:15 AM

Hamas is resistent to what? morality!?

And it seems Rice is resistent to getting a clue.

Posted by: R_not at June 27, 2007 11:35 AM

Secretarty Rice: a living "resistence movement", resistent to sanity, ethics, morals and intelligence. A perfect selection for foreign policy affairs by the "Ham-Hander-in-Chief".

Choose your candidates wisely in 2008.

Posted by: awake at June 27, 2007 11:39 AM

"Choose your candidates wisely in 2008."

We didn't have much of a choice in 2000 and 2004. That is why Bush got elected, especially in 2004. And the Democrats offer absolutely nothing so far in 2008, unless we want to go back to the continual attacks on our citizens that we had in the 1990s, while the military and inteligence agencies are gutted again. Go look at voting records of the ones who are trying to get elected from the Senate. (senators are not leaders - all they do is talk) I don't like the idea that the radical muslims in Bosnia/Kosovo gave to the DNC in 2004 because they are so grateful to them for helping them slaughter.

Posted by: R_not at June 27, 2007 11:44 AM

@ R_not

Agreed. We are in trouble for sure at the moment.

Posted by: awake at June 27, 2007 11:54 AM

The real victims of Affirmative Action are the talented minorities. When an unqualified person is put in a highly visible position, everybody gets to see him fail. When it is clear that the real reason that the person who failed was given the job is the color of their skin, these failures reinforce stereotypes and make people angry. Especially when the failure impacts those who watch it happen.

And the hard working non-Europeans who have earned their positions in the marketplace pay the price.

Posted by: pez at June 27, 2007 12:18 PM

pez, I don't think Bush put Rice into that position because she is black. I really think that Bush isn't concerned with color.

I actually respect her, and am wondering why she isn't doing more reading on this subject - unless she is getting her info, or suggested readings, from muslims who are practicing their deception. If she just went into the office where Jefferson's koran is located - read the same book he did and maybe she would get a clue. Jefferson did. I would adding the haddiths to the reading list, and then start putting one and one together - muslims are told that they cannot make a peace agreement longer than 10 years, and during that time they are to rearm and regroup - and break the peace treaty at any time they feel they can start the jihad again. Learn about jizya, dhimmitude, battle tactics, etc. (not too much spiritual stuff in those readings!)

If she put one and one together she would take current history and realize that the muslims are doing exactly what the big MO told them to do. She would run into Bush's office - tell him to stop paying all muslim nations any money, stop muslim immigration, stop taking any monies from Saudi Arabia, and stop appeasing them in all ways - because it won't work.

I won't hold my breath, even for 1% of a glimmer of a clue because I think it will take us getting hammered a little, or a lot, longer before our dimwit politicians get a clue.

Posted by: R_not at June 27, 2007 12:51 PM

Once her term is over, instead of moving to CA or trying to be NFL commissioner, she should move to Gaza and experience life there. She'll then know the beauty that's Hamas... and Islam!

Posted by: Infidel Pride at June 27, 2007 1:15 PM

Is that all it is? I think I'll start one!

Posted by: MZ at June 27, 2007 1:59 PM

She should never been given a free hand.

As an advisor and diplomat she was fine. As a decision maker she's an empty can.

She seems to have the notion that the world is divided into Americas and USSRs, players with different ideologies but a common basic understanding of what their individual interests are.

The MohFoes are going to play her like a fiddle.

Posted by: joeblough at June 27, 2007 1:59 PM

So cleaned up these words. Resistance movement! Yaa, that's the ticket. How about ethenic cleansing instead of genocide and murder, and death march instead of walking to death, and how about matyrs instead of murder's! What does she call the holocaust victims now? oh, yaa, probably, unfortunate calamities! What does she call slaves?

Posted by: MZ at June 27, 2007 2:13 PM

I guess "unscripted" (in Ms. Rice's case) is news- speak for "unthinking".

I haven't liked Condi since she babbled brainlessly and apologetically (before she bothered to check her facts) about the her respect for the "Holy, Holy" Koran during the faux Koran-flushing non-incident at Gitmo.

It was squalid and stupid.

Kow-towing unnecessarily and hysterically over a propaganda fantasy.

Showing little character, historical sense, or dignity.

Puffed Rice indeed.

Posted by: profitsbeard at June 27, 2007 4:58 PM

MZ

"What does she call slaves?"

Non-voluntary workers.

I wonder if we are the ones who will resist certain resistance movements...

...and before that if USSR had guided missiles with projected trajectories ending in North America; and before that if North Vietnam was attemting establishment of socially-oriented reforms in South Vietnam; and before that if North Korean military units temporarily breached the border of South Korea; and before that if German military personnel was dislocated in Poland, France, Chehoslovakia, Austria, Belgium, etc., and if NSDAP was conducting labour and habitat reform in Dahau etc.

Posted by: Excommie at June 27, 2007 6:11 PM

I have an inbuilt resistance against Rice. Its growing by the day...

but now something different:

http://sheikyermami.com/2007/06/27/a-cult-that-masquerades-as-a-religion/

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at June 27, 2007 11:20 PM

skeik yer' mami; the last reply on your post, about skin color? that will change,,real fast, radicals as I call them will join these jihadist..
I saw that in Rosie's kid. It wasn't just cute or a mistake or dumm, it was a clear message and people will soon follow. Copy cats! A-O's!..

Posted by: MZ at June 28, 2007 4:58 AM

Let's consider this a few moments, Jay. One COULD quite legitimately consider Hamas to be a resistance movement by modern standards if not by traditional standards. The key is to note that they are not resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestine. They are resisting the their other half, Fatah. It is important to figure out WHO is being resisted when a group is accused of being a resistance movement.

Posted by: jdow at June 28, 2007 6:49 AM

There is another resistance group that has formed and it has you ,myself and every other anti jihadist that visits this room and the ones like it.

Is it any mystery that dealing with this menatlity for decades and centuries has rubbed off on us?Is it safe to say we ourselves will be seeing our share of infighting?

Prophecy,maybe,like history comes full circle.

Brother against brother.Cain and Able.

Posted by: Dar al-harb at June 28, 2007 10:01 PM

They said on Court tv Cain not quilty of killing for he never knew the consequences. No one had died ever yet by killing. They did not know what killing was. Seems to me, he did, we do not have to jump off the mountain to know we will end our life.

Posted by: MZ at June 29, 2007 5:07 PM