Condoleezza Rice: Tragic Hypocrite

Conservative publication The Washington Post published an article entitled Policy Shifts Felt After Bolton's Departure that talks about how Condoleezza Rice pushed John R. Bolton out of the State Department.

Rice pushed him out because - it becomes clear - he was the worst type of bureaucrat: the type that blocks pragmatic solutions to real problems.

On the list of things broken by Bolton - that Rice wanted to fix - was a stalled program to keep Russian nuclear fuel out of reach of terrorists. Once Bolton was out of the loop, progress was made.

So - maybe this is a stupid question - but why didn't this Administration just can him? Or do one of those things they do with "liberals" - find him a basement office somewhere where he has no work and wait for him to get bored to death and resign?

Because keeping nuclear fuel out of the hands of terrorists sounds pretty important to me. You'd think it would be important to the President, too, given that his Administration - and his Congress - have been shutting down civil liberties in this country allegedly to curb terrorist threats.

Yet it would appear that Bolton was working at cross purposes both to Bush's stated desires and the well-being of the American people.

Bush let him be. But when Rice was appointed to Secretary of State, although she apparently couldn't just kick Bolton out, she got rid of him using the Peter Principle. She kicked him up to a higher level by promoting him as an ideal candidate for U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. where - if he is confirmed - he will be able to demonstrate even more incompetence.

Rice has since begun to turn State Department policy around so it is more pragmatic and effective.

Well, that's score one for her - doing the deal with Russia to protect nuclear fuel is a biggie. But she gets a demerit for now trying to foist this petty and ineffective bureaucrat on the U.N. - as if the U.N. doesn't have enough problems.

Or is that the point? Maybe this Administrations wants to make the U.N. look even worse - and less effective - than it is.

Yet we need the U.N. more than ever so nations can work together, step up and solve the horrendous problems facing the world including desertification, sexual trafficking, starvation, the AIDS pandemic and the genocide in Dafur that is going on as you read this.

For Rice to tout Bolton just to get him out of her way is more than hypocritical. It's tragic.