Heckuva job, Condi

I've never understood the generally good press and the gushing accolades that Condelezza Rice gets. It seems to me, frankly, she has been a disaster as, first, National Security Adviser, and, now, Secretary of State.

She was the person, after all, ultimately responsible for briefing George Bush on the now infamous August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing that was titled: "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." During her slippery testimony before Congress, when they investigated what went wrong, she hemmed and hawwed and said no one really predicted that, well, bin Laden was going to attack inside the United States.

Except, you know, that whole briefing thing from August. The one called, ohh, what was it again? Oh yes: Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.

Did the intelligence have the flight numbers or the date 9-11? No. Did it provide a fairly strong warning that something ominous was coming, and perhaps steps should be taken to increase monitoring of al Queda members in the U.S? Yes.

Condi, however, somehow escaped any accountability for her role in not ringing the alarm bells for the devastating attack that took place a month after the PDB.

And now, she is telling reporters that no one saw the depth of the anger and disillusionment among the Palestinians that would lead to them overwhelmingly voting into power the terror group Hamas.

According to the Times: "I've asked why nobody saw it coming," Ms. Rice said, speaking of her own staff. "It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse."

No shit.

Excuse me. She's in charge of this country's foreign policy establishment, but she and her people didn't even have contingency plans ready in the event that Hamas gained some sort of official power, never mind control, in an election we were all assured was going to be just another happy example of the flower of democracy growing in the middle east.

Yeah, that certainly worked out well, didn't it?

In most other countries, when a high government official presides over failure after failure, they resign in shame. Or, at least, get fired by the head of state.

Not under Bush. Here, they tend to get a promotion or a medal.

And Condi? Well, you know she used to be a university provost, and she plays the piano nice, and she dresses real snappy. Why rock the boat.

Pathetic.