Consent and Advise
By JACOB HEILBRUNN
New York Times Book Review
CONDOLEEZZA RICE
An American Life: A Biography.
By Elisabeth Bumiller.
Illustrated. 400 pp. Random House. $27.95.
Condoleezza Rice is a survivor. Of the foreign policy members of the original Bush cabinet, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld are gone. Vice President Dick Cheney is on the defensive. It’s Rice, shunted to the sidelines during President Bush’s first term, who is now in the ascendant. The signs of her new influence as secretary of state are everywhere.
Rice’s former deputy Stephen Hadley succeeded her as national security adviser. She helped ensure that her old boss Robert Gates would become defense secretary. The United States is actively pushing for a Middle East peace settlement, negotiating with North Korea and reaching out to Western Europe. And the most that hard-liners like the former United Nations ambassador John Bolton can do is complain that Rice lacks the gumption to stand up for America’s true interests and that Bush “does not supervise her enough.”
The volte-face Rice has presided over is also a very personal one. During Bush’s first term, few officials publicly championed the Iraq war more fervently than did Rice, who dressed down skeptics as though they were errant schoolchildren in need of a starchy governess. She turned on old mentors like the former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, who in August 2002 had the temerity to cast doubt on the wisdom of attacking Baghdad. So is she simply an opportunist who subordinates herself to her superiors? Or does Rice actually stand for something beyond smoothing her own political ascent?
(Continued here.)
New York Times Book Review
CONDOLEEZZA RICE
An American Life: A Biography.
By Elisabeth Bumiller.
Illustrated. 400 pp. Random House. $27.95.
Condoleezza Rice is a survivor. Of the foreign policy members of the original Bush cabinet, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld are gone. Vice President Dick Cheney is on the defensive. It’s Rice, shunted to the sidelines during President Bush’s first term, who is now in the ascendant. The signs of her new influence as secretary of state are everywhere.
Rice’s former deputy Stephen Hadley succeeded her as national security adviser. She helped ensure that her old boss Robert Gates would become defense secretary. The United States is actively pushing for a Middle East peace settlement, negotiating with North Korea and reaching out to Western Europe. And the most that hard-liners like the former United Nations ambassador John Bolton can do is complain that Rice lacks the gumption to stand up for America’s true interests and that Bush “does not supervise her enough.”
The volte-face Rice has presided over is also a very personal one. During Bush’s first term, few officials publicly championed the Iraq war more fervently than did Rice, who dressed down skeptics as though they were errant schoolchildren in need of a starchy governess. She turned on old mentors like the former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, who in August 2002 had the temerity to cast doubt on the wisdom of attacking Baghdad. So is she simply an opportunist who subordinates herself to her superiors? Or does Rice actually stand for something beyond smoothing her own political ascent?
(Continued here.)
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