The Evolution of Condi Rice

A reader writes:

It's good that Jeff Weintraub notices Condi's pulling out the "no one saw it coming" canard. Again.

Back to her record in the her job as National Security Advisor, people seem to conveniently forget that the United States was attacked on Condi/Bush's watch, not 8 days or 8 weeks but 8 months into Bush's administration.  And Condi and her team had been forewarned that terrorists were plotting to use civilian airliners as weapons. Several documents in the public domain, one read aloud during those 9/11 Commission hearings, prove it. In fact, in the two years preceding the attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command held exercises simulating hijacked airlines used as weapons to cause mass civilian casualties. Chillingly, one of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center. So when Condi said that the national security apparatus – which she headed – was as surprised as anyone, she was….lying.

As to her legendary steadfastness in the face of criticism, that steadfastness continues in the face of decisions that have been proven disastrous or whose asserted rationale has been proven untrue. Here, one recalls Emerson: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Interestingly, Rice has been "flexible" when her position made consistency, er, difficult and uncomfortable. As George Will also pointed out in 2004, in 2000 Rice questioned the use of U.S. military forces in peacekeeping operations, saying "Carrying out civil administration and police functions is simply going to degrade the American capability to do the things America has to do...we don't need the 82d Airborne escorting kids to kindergarten." Yet the vast majority of what our military is doing in Iraq is "nation-building" and "civil administration." This is but one example of her striking about-faces...such as her sea change since 1999 when called upon to tutor then-Governor Bush in foreign affairs, and she said "I would expect the United State to probably intervene less. I think there has been a somewhat promiscuous use of power in the Cold War era."

Now I remember why I preferred Bush to Gore on foreign policy in 2000. Less interventionist. More humble. Ha ha ha ha ha sniffle.