Is Secretary Rice On The Outs or On The Way Out?

She hasn't smiled admiringly at George Bush in months. There seems to be little evidence of the early affection and respect between the two. After a stint of Princess Di treatment by heads of state around the world, our Secretary of State is looking constantly perturbed when not downright angry. My guess is she's between a rock and a hard place as she owes George Bush for her current high visibility status and he and Laura for countless days at the ranch as their daughter-like guest, but she disapproves of many of his recent actions. She's stood by him but now knows that he'll dump anyone to save himself, that he's disloyal to the loyal.

Her new diplomatic assignment in the Middle East beats a sudden Rumsfeld-like dismissal, but not by much. She will help guarantee failure because she is not an effective negotiator - too much telling and very little listening, too obsessed with the one way of achieving a single goal rather than options for achieving multiple, similar ones. Like our Plan A President, when she has a principle or course of action she's like a pit bull. In short, Secretary Rice is the right person for the job of failing to negotiate and thereby making a war with Iran look like a last resort. But where would that leave her?

Strained relations between the President and his Secretary of State may be speculation, yet there's often truth in rigorous forms and something is not quite right in that relationship. Rice knows far too much for the President to let her go, but he seems to be putting distance between the two of them. He has given more praise and nods of approval lately to Joe Lieberman than he's given to her. John Negroponte, a powerful and experienced diplomat, is on her heels. Something is indeed amiss.

Breeze by a bookstore and check out "Courage as a Skill" in The Harvard Business Review