Saul Friedman: Time for a Closer Look at Condoleeza Rice
from Nieman Watchdog
So far, of all the top officials in the Bush administration, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has gotten away relatively unscathed in the main stream press. Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, George Tenet, the Joint Chiefs and President Bush himself have taken punishment, at least in the polls. But except for her shoe buying during the Katrina aftermath, Rice has escaped without serious bruising questions from the press even for the passport mess, which is her responsibility, let alone her failures in foreign affairs. But that may be changing..
The Washington Post’s diplomatic correspondent, Glenn Kessler, a former colleague and a solid reporter, is about to breaktheough her tailored patina with a book, “The Confidante: Condoleeza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy.” One reviewer, Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, says Kessler identifies the weakness of Rice’s stewardship as the “absence of any coherent foreign policy vision.” Steve Coll said the book “provides a devastating account of how Rice’s diplomacy often rested on wish and illusion.” That’s putting it mildly, but it’s about time it’s been said, for as a former diplomatic correspondent who has followed foreign affairs, I can’t think of a single thing she’s accomplished on her watch. And it’s time for the press to catch on.
Perhaps she can take credit for giving India a deal to enhance its nuclear capability. But it’s hard to see how that will help strengthen the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. And her diplomats seem to have won an agreement to de-nuclearize North Korea, no real thanks to her or her president. But what I want to know is how she has advanced the cause of peace, especially in the Middle East, which is what secretaries of state are supposed to do? Rather, it seems to me, she’s been at the center of disaster–as a cheerleader.
Maybe I’m spoiled, for I covered the four years of James Baker’s tenure at State, during which time he helped dismantle the Soviet empire without firing a shot; he concluded two important arms reduction agreements, negotiated during the Reagan presidency but signed by George H.W. Bush; he won unprecedented international and Arab backing for the war to expel Sadam Hussein from Kuwait, and he organized and prodded Israel to the table of the Madrid peace conference which brought the Arab nations and Israel together for the first time.
(Continued here.)
So far, of all the top officials in the Bush administration, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has gotten away relatively unscathed in the main stream press. Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, George Tenet, the Joint Chiefs and President Bush himself have taken punishment, at least in the polls. But except for her shoe buying during the Katrina aftermath, Rice has escaped without serious bruising questions from the press even for the passport mess, which is her responsibility, let alone her failures in foreign affairs. But that may be changing..
The Washington Post’s diplomatic correspondent, Glenn Kessler, a former colleague and a solid reporter, is about to breaktheough her tailored patina with a book, “The Confidante: Condoleeza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy.” One reviewer, Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, says Kessler identifies the weakness of Rice’s stewardship as the “absence of any coherent foreign policy vision.” Steve Coll said the book “provides a devastating account of how Rice’s diplomacy often rested on wish and illusion.” That’s putting it mildly, but it’s about time it’s been said, for as a former diplomatic correspondent who has followed foreign affairs, I can’t think of a single thing she’s accomplished on her watch. And it’s time for the press to catch on.
Perhaps she can take credit for giving India a deal to enhance its nuclear capability. But it’s hard to see how that will help strengthen the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. And her diplomats seem to have won an agreement to de-nuclearize North Korea, no real thanks to her or her president. But what I want to know is how she has advanced the cause of peace, especially in the Middle East, which is what secretaries of state are supposed to do? Rather, it seems to me, she’s been at the center of disaster–as a cheerleader.
Maybe I’m spoiled, for I covered the four years of James Baker’s tenure at State, during which time he helped dismantle the Soviet empire without firing a shot; he concluded two important arms reduction agreements, negotiated during the Reagan presidency but signed by George H.W. Bush; he won unprecedented international and Arab backing for the war to expel Sadam Hussein from Kuwait, and he organized and prodded Israel to the table of the Madrid peace conference which brought the Arab nations and Israel together for the first time.
(Continued here.)
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