The previous post on this administration's decision-making style gets at why out of this administration's top-level foreign policy decision makers I have a particularly high level of disdain for Dr. Rice. Quite apart from her seemingly endless talent for mendacity (listing her lies would take reams of pages, so I'll just reference 3 whoppers that should make the press never pay the least bit of attention to her: her testimony about the "Bin Laden determined to strike in US" presidential daily brief; the Niger yellowcake affair; and that mind-blowing assertion that no one could have ever imagined flying planes into buildings), she is in my mind centrally at fault for failing to establish a decision-making system that works effectively. I mean what exactly is her job supposed to be, if not that. We know that it also involves talking the president into talking to the German Chancellor even though he doesn't like him (and what was that about? is the president a 6 year old or what? the Chancellor makes him mad so he throws a tantrum at the thought of a phone conversation with the head of one of the most powerful countries on Earth?). But at a more basic level, the head of the NSC is supposed to serve as a coordinator and a facilitator. The level to which the decision-making process has come unhinged in this administration is unprecedented (I mean when administration officials say it's much worse than in Reagan's first term ... wow, I mean that's hard to process ... the mind reels). This is, at a basic level, the fault of the president. He should have stepped in tried to fix this long ago. And perhaps he's been unwilling to give her the authority to do so on his behalf. But if she had even a shred of a belief in personal responsibility she would have moved back to California long ago.
Posted by armand at May 23, 2004 01:41 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics