I Want Condi

From the very beginning, the presidential race should have been between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton opposing Sen. McCain and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. It could still be if we quit wasting time.

-- Letter to the Editor, Wall Street Journal 08/12/08

I don't believe Condoleezza Rice can actually play piano. Everything else she's ever touched has been a fraud and a catastrophe, why should her alleged musical abilities be any different? Think about it. Think about any event she's been even remotely involved in since you first heard her name. An endless string of threats and blundering and arrogant bluffs turned squalid pigfucks. It's not that she can't do her job; she can't do anything. I think when she plays piano the piano catches fire and the audience dies.

So yeah, sure, Condoleezza Rice for Vice President. Time's a wastin'.

But there's one other thing that we're always told to keep in mind when we consider Condoleezza -- I mean, besides her wondrous ability to play an instrument: Whatever happens, It's not her fault.

Sure, she ignored the warnings about bin Laden, and she was shoe shopping during Katrina, and she can't find her ass with her hands on Lebanon, or North Korea, or Pakistan. It's not her fault because those aren't her area.

Her field of expertise is the Soviet Union. Ask anyone at the Hoover Institute. She's just brilliant on the Soviet Union.

She's written books on the Soviets, a dissertation even! She speaks Russian. She has impeccable credentials -- for a top slot in the Ford administration.

So it's not fair to get down on her for her inability to handle Zimbabwe or Iran or Venezuela; George W. Bush needed her at his side in case Brezhnev came back.

And she was a woman and a minority, too! Which would have been really something, in about 1975. But, considering the Berlin Wall had fallen in 1989, making a Sovietologist National Security Advisor was like putting Pocahontas in charge of NASA.

During Dr. Rice's tenure, we've had a devastating terrorist attack and two wars. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians went nowhere, and Pakistan sold everybody the bomb. In 2000, there was serious talk about making Bill Clinton Secretary General of the United Nations. In 2008, Mexico and England are the only places Air Force One can land without dropping flares.

But it wasn't her fault. She was standing watch on the Danube.

She's been trained since birth to handle Russia. If a strongman ever took over there she'd box him in faster than you could say "détente." And if that strongman ever even thought about invading somewhere? She'd know about it, and she'd slap him down faster than you could say "containment."

Or maybe not.

GEORGIA ROUTED AS PEACE BID FAILS

- Headline, Wall Street Journal 08/12/08

So where's Condi, while the French broker a peace treaty?

Has anyone checked the shoe stores?

Comments

[wldnswmmr]

Thank YOU, Mr. Kelly. It's way past time to say all this. She absolutely sucks at her job(s). She's Bush's pet and that's it. I've lived in the Bay Area all my life and I know people on the faculty at Stanford. No one can understand her "meteoric" rise to preeminence -- she was a mediocre academic with an unusually anemic background for a Stanford prof. I think Bush sees in her the female version of Chance the Gardener that explains his own success - for some reason, despite an unbroken record of incompetence, people keep thinking something is there when it isn't.

C'mon, Condi - sit down at that keyboard and knock out the Revolutionary Etude.

[CatfishJohn]

....correction is in order sir---Dr. rice was shopping for shoes the day Katrina was breaking...and as nonchalant and indiferrent as any conservative republican would be over this tragic day.......but the real confusion was at the very genesis of her political awareness...she states she was made aware of politics and all that as a friend of the child victims of the birmingham church bombing in 1964....so what did she do???- she willingly signed on to the very ethos of racism that was at the core of the reaganista movement and became a staunch advocate of the political party that made itself a welcoming host to racist southerners of the church bombing mentality and various less lethal forms of racist venom...she rejected the progressive ethos that made her career and ascendancy possible through the blood and toil of civil rights workers and liberals who she would decalre to be her adversaries during her career... rubbing elbows with the racist core of modern american politics which dwells in the republican party was no problema for dr. rice, nor did she utter a peep about 50,000-plus blacks denied the right to vote by the jeb-katherine harris "fix" in florida in 2000...so even before she failed in these roles of prominence at nsc and as sec. of state, we see a very, very confused virtually inexplicable loyalty in her to many republicans who would have tacitly endorsed the 1964 birmingham atrocity that killed her childhood friends...

[peterg76]

And remember, she probably couldn't have know the date of the September 11th attacks (even though that was her exact job description), but everyone knew the predicted date of Katrina's landfall.

[Troubledgoodangel]

Who knows who wrote President Bush's "victory speech"? Probably Dr. Rice. Why? After all, she has aharvard degree! The historians should check this out.

[secondharmonic]

My wiife, who also grew up in Denver at the same time as Condi, WAS for real an award winning figure skater in her younger days. She knew Condi slightly, and despite what she claims (talk about pufffing up resumes!) my wife says she (Condi) was never that good -- oh she could skate around the rink sorta, but she could barely do a spin w/o falling over etc. etc So false in one, false in all...
.

[punkingale]

Condi grew up in Birmingham, Alabama.

[wolfgangmo]

Where, if I am not wrong, there is not a lot of ice available for skating.

[secondharmonic]

Punk, do you doubt me, or my wife? Wiki is your friend, as is google. Try it some time.
To wit: "in 1967 Rice moved with her family to Denver, Colorado..." That would be when she was 12.
You can apologize now.

[jsinclair]

She's incompetent and dishonest just like everyone else around George Bush.

No surprises there.

[Missmn]

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I am so tired of pro-Condi rhetoric. She's about as inept as one can get and it's time to start talking about it.

[bored2tears]

Actually, Rice was shoe shopping while New Orleans drowned.

[SouthFloridaDem]

Long ago, I looked at her resume and wondered what she had done. There are lists of titles, positions she's held, but did she actually DO anything? I sure couldn't find it. Like the "all hat, no cattle," she's all CV, did nothing. I think she would be a wonderful choice for VP -- for them. She's sure to make a ton of GOP voters stay home.

[AntonRobb]

This just goes to prove that the Peter Principle applies equally to women and minorities as well. Too bad we had to use our highest political offices to prove what should have been understood intuitively. Should have been enough to see it were true in the corporate world (think Carly Fiorina and her WONDERFUL success at HP).

Peter Principle - Given the opportunity, every person will rise through an organization to his/her highest level of incompetence.

[cheshirecat831]

Playing the piano is probably the only thing she can do

Talking Pez Heads
http://sfbaysailingpix.com/pez2008p1.htm

[Wintergreen4President]

There's a job opening at Marie's Crisis if she's willing to audition.

[GWBushIsANitwit]

She's on vacation. Seriously. And she's annoyed that people keep trying to call her.

[sufi66]

Why expect anything positive from a sociopath?

[Fez]

Condalini Rice proves that it is possible to be incompetent and out of touch despite her education, race, and gender. She has leveled the playing field for other women and minorities wishing to enter politics by demonstrating that ineptitude is not determined by gender or race but by pure ignorance.

[Michale32086]

Why is it that the Left screams and cries about sexism and misogyny, yet has absolutely NO problem with degrading sexism against those on the Right??

Seems a little hypocritical to me..

Michale.....

[LeftRight]

When did I "scream and cry about sexism and misogyny"? Are you talking about how we didn't like it during the primaries when Hillary was subjected to news articles about how she was showing cleavage, and her "cackle"? Cause that's in a COMPLETELY different boat than coming out and explaining that Dr. Condoleeza Rice specialized in SOVIET history!

[Michale32086]

I wasn't referring to you specifically, but rather the hysterical LEFT in general..

But, you have to admit......

}}}}}}}}}}}}}}
So where's Condi, while the French broker a peace treaty?

Has anyone checked the shoe stores?
}}}}}}}}}}}}}

..... is a pretty sexist remark. It's akin to a SSgt I knew in the Air Force over on Okinawa who got an Article 15 because he told a female Airman that she should just go bake a cake...

Michale.....

[Michale32086]

It wasn't my intention to focus all the intention on this one aspect of your commentary..

I simply think that it is an indication of a larger problem that the Left has...

Things that are normally verboten by the Left are given a free pass if they are applied to the Right..

This is, by NO means, only a Left problem. There are those who are equally hysterical and equally irrational on the Right who do the exact same thing...

Both the hysterical Left and the Hysterical Right don't seem to understand that the other is not some sub-species of human. When all is said and done, we are ALL Americans, regardless of our political ideology...

Many on the Left AND the Right tend to forget that..

That's all I am saying....

Michale.....

[PierreLeClerke]

The story was clear. The not so sophisticated sarcasm was focused on incompetence. Sorry you didn't get it. Please defend those that are worthy of your passion. But do try to keep up.

[b8akaratn]

As a bleeding heart lefty, I completely agree w/what Michael32086. I had enough of the "Hillary is a nagging ball-buster, reminiscent of someone's mom" crap... I don't like seeing it applied to Rice, either (though I dislike her more & some of the other items are on point).

The sexist comments just really tend to weaken the overall piece.

[WoodyCPM]

Exactly which parts of Chris Kelly's piece do you believe is "sexist"? Or do you just like to praise yourself for not being "sexist"? The piece wasn't about Hillary Clinton either.

[S1m0n]

There's nothing sexist in this piece. Far more sexist is your apparrant position: that women must be free from any kind of criticism.

On the contrary: holding a female secretary of state to the same standard as a man is the opposite of feminism.

[paixa3]

Michale32086 has no real defense of Condi.....he only knows talking points.

[WoodyCPM]

I don't believe you could distinguish or discern what is genuine sexism from a dead fish. How old are you? Every criticism of someone's behavior or abilities is not automatically sexism just because they might happen to be female. Kelly didn't attack her for being female, he attacked her for being dumb. He didn't say or imply that her being dumb was caused by being female. To think so is sexist.

[gra8whit]

At least she isn't as offensive and piss off our allies like the de facto Sec. of State Don Rumsfeld.

[LeftRight]

Yeah she does.

[mairs]

Other countries despise her. Israel thinks she's an incompetent fool.

[LeftRight]

But this ALSO is not Condi's fault, since Georgia was part of the Soviet Union, so this is a merely INTERNAL matter for Russia!

[punkingale]

Didn't Condi confuse yes and no in Russian last year?