Is this a great country or what? Thanks to President Bush, we will now have the first secretary of state who once had an oil tanker named after her. No kidding. Chevron put Condoleezza Rice’s name on a tanker when she served on its board of directors, from which she resigned just
before the 2001 inauguration.
But that factoid is overshadowed by her career since moving from Chevron’s board. Does she deserve this career move? Set aside her lack of experience as a diplomat. Except for some time spent as provost of Stanford University, she was a specialist in Russian studies. Also set aside her weak management skills, which were manifest during her tenure as national security advisor.
Can she learn to tell the truth to
the American people? Her record
is not encouraging. Rice was one
of the key administration people in the massive deception campaign leading up to the invasion of Iraq. The U.S. government refuses to keep count. More than once, Rice stood before the American people and blatantly lied to them. It was Rice who told us shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks that she and the rest of the national security apparatus never dreamed that Al-Qaida would ever fly airplanes into buildings. We learned later that the CIA had warned of this. And Rice played on the American people’s fears of a nuclear attack from Iraq. It was she who said, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
So now we have an interesting situation: The woman who played so important a role in deceiving the American people into war has been nominated for the most prestigious job in the U.S. government. Some years ago Laurence Peter formulated the Peter Principle: “In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” If Rice is confirmed as secretary of state, Dr. Peter’s principle will have to be revised. The question is not, “Does she deserve it?” No. The question is, “Do we?”
Sheldon Richman
Fairfax, Va.