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I think many of her critics (like me) aren't saying they're unhappy with her in an advisory role. She's just proven unsuitable in a role placing her in charge of bureaucrats, of which the President is in charge, ultimately, of all.

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"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater

The problem is that Rice has tried to engineer a vast reform of the State Department, moving diplomats who would rather serve in Brussels to Quetta and Pnomh Penh. This produced huge pushback in a Department that was, to be honest, a huge resevoir of Democratic Party loyalists. This is actually the work of two-terms. I suspect, if the D's win, that her efforts will be undone by the next S.O.S..

Further, one of the critiques from the Right was the expectation of a Yezhov Purge of the Department once she got there, as if Rice was supposed to do a "thorough housecleaning" of Foggy Bottom. It was as if Rice was supposed to staff the Department with the likes of John Bolton and Alan Keyes, and Buffy from the Tarrant County Young Republicans. That's impossible to do with long service CS types. Rice understood this, and worked with what she had handed to her by Powell.

What conservatives don't understand is that ANY Bush appointee not specifically approved by the Democratic cloakroom was always going to have problems at State.
Powell got away with it because Democrats perceived him to be a "dissident", which he, in fact, was. Some conservatives like to indulge in John Bolton fantasies. This is nonsense. Someone like John Bolton would have never gotten out of Foreign Relations, much less been able to run the Department. But he has great book sales.

What Rice did not do, that Powell did all the time, was engage in hostile leaking against the White House. I've never understood the hostility of conservatives toward Rice, given the towering difficulties that were handed to her, and her insistence on carrying out the policies of the President. Least forgivable, in my eyes, was the conduct of conservatives after the 2006 Lebanon war, in which Rice deliberately stalled a ceasefire for three weeks to give the IDF chance after chance to make a lemon out of lemonade, and they just couldn't hack it because of poor leadership at the top. People like John Bolton, who know better, blamed her because they didn't want to blame the Olmert Government for its own towering incompetence.

Today's speech is a welcome refresher for those who forget that the role of the Secretary of State is diplomacy. It is the President's role to remind one and all of princple and the Mailed Fist.

Now, if only McCain will follow through. I have my doubts.

"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it"-Winston Churchill

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Finrod's First Law of Bandwidth:
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it takes the bandwidth of ten thousand.

Tim Schieferecke

Cry me a river, Barack.
Cry me a river.
I hope John McCain says-"ditto to what Dubya said."
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Just a typical, small town, white girl...

David123

“.....women and minorities hardest hit”

he just criticized appeasement, and Obama is howling like a stuck pig. Now, what does that tell you?

"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill

a terrorist appeaser. That's what.
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Just a typical, small town, white girl...

But I loved the anecdote about "an American Senator" in 1939. Which ever speech writer came up with that tidbit was brilliant.

Does anyone know the name of the dumbass Senator?

Not certain, but would guess Burton K. Wheeler

"If you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one it hits will holler."

That dog got HIT.

Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson

Bush was absolutely right in what he said. The libs can't stand it. I was just making my weekly visit to the one lib blog I visit (because I am clearly a masochist or whatever). Anyway, they were all in an uproar over President S@*T for brains, as they so eloquently refer to him.
Oh by the way, Conservatism is dead in case you missed the memo.
MelZ

He just supports meeting and negotiating with them without any preconditions. Oh wait, that is a policy of appeasement and engaging with terrorists.

His bad!

*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!

Ahmadinejad, Hamas, FARK etc aren't terrorists therefor he hasn't.

You merely need to look at it with the right "glasses" on.

the "Left" glasses?

N/T

he does have (had) a warm reltionship with Tom Coburn, who wants to arrest abortionist.

McCain '08

I literally laughed out loud at your post. If you could only bring along about another 15% cool black cats, we would DOMINATE the media talking points- you have a way with words good sir!!

"Small town folks get bitter after which they cling to guns or religion, or antipathy to people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment."

I was about to add more than my simple "Thanks!" but my language was so pedestrian that I was sure you'd say, "Zoot, you no longer have a way with words."

*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!

While I am all but certain that the bit about the American senator in 1939 was an indirect slap in Obama's smug little face, this response by him shows that he is aware of his soft, weak underbelly when it comes to foreign policy.

Of course, in his twisted liberal mind, Hamas, Iran and the like aren't "terrorists". They are just downtrodden folks trying to get along as best they can...

Now we're going to find out how good a candidate McCain is.

I'm not so sure, seeing that he appears to have mailed in his speech today. None of this works unless McCain follows through and is relentless in his attack.

Of course, McCain could go for the "New Tone", and completely blow it, which is what I expect him to do.

Putz.

"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it"-Winston Churchill

McCain actually LIT INTO Obama this afternoon. He is not a putz- he may be a lot of things, but that is not one of them. He is going to pleasantly surprise us how much he goes after Obama on his insane positions..

"Small town folks get bitter after which they cling to guns or religion, or antipathy to people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment."

When/where did McCain light into BHO? Been at my desk all day, would love a link or at least a little info?
MelZ

Obama's defense boils down to, "That's not true, how dare you attack me!" This is a statement, not a defense.

Of course, this is the essence of Obama, nothing that looks like something. I would call it smoke and mirrors, but there aren't any mirrors. It is just smoke.

Obama said he would not negotiate with Hamas (though one has to assume that, like Reverend Wright, Obama had no idea what Robert Malley was doing either).

However, Bush said "terrorists and radicals," an obvious allusion to Obama's willingness to negotiate with Iran as well.

That's a more debatable point.

In 1956, Soviet premier Khrushchev told assembled Western ambassadors, "We will bury you!" But we negotiated with the USSR for the better part of 40 years. Even Reagan, who denounced the USSR as an "evil empire," negotiated arms-control agreements with the USSR.

Having said that, it was always U.S. policy (except maybe under Jimmy Carter) to negotiate from a position of relative strength. We didn't want "negotiations" to be nothing but a thinly disguised American surrender.

The problem with negotiating with Iran is not that it's tantamount to appeasement (that's just silly). The problem with negotiating with Iran is that, thanks to Bush's Iraq misadventure and America's continuing insatiable thirst for oil, the U.S. is in a pretty weak bargaining position vis-a-vis the Iranians. Bush didn't mention those points, because it wouldn't reflect well on the strategic thinking (or dismal lack thereof) underlying his Administration.

Reportedly, Ahmedinijad's own Oil Ministry advisers have told him that a U.S. military strike on Iran that crippled their oil production or distribution facilities would send world oil prices soaring to $300 per barrel or more. And that is why Ahmedinijad regards the U.S. as a paper tiger.

Under the current circumstances, negotiating with Iran could not be undertaken on any terms other than surrender.

Reagan made sure to have a massive military modernization program under way before negotiating with the USSR. Bush did not bother to have a massive energy independence program under way. If Obama had a massive energy independence program under way, then he could actually negotiate with Iran on some basis other than surrender. Otherwise not.

BTW, one more point: Negotiating with Hitler would have worked just fine, if there had been real strategic thinking, real force, and a real willingness to use it, behind those negotiations. The problem was not negotiation. The problem was not having the will to force a good bargain. A coalition consisting of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia and France would have totally contained Hitler and prevented World War II. But the West didn't want to make an alliance with the USSR till it was too late; and the West was too afraid of war--even an easy war, even any war--to not throw Czechoslovakia under the bus.

The problem for Chamberlain and Daladier wasn't negotiation. The problem was that the option of military action had been arbitrarily taken off the table. Which is what Obama seems to be promising too.

Negotiation with powers like the USSR or Iran works when you walk up to the negotiation table with a fully loaded gun. And the guy across the table from you knows that you will use it.

the war. They agreed to split Poland in half as part of their cooperation.

You're "if only" negotiation fantasy has no merit.

Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.

Your statement should be "the USSR was cynically on Hitler's side early in the war." Allying with Hitler bought Stalin two more years to rebuild his army after having purged it in the political terror of the '30s.

Negotiations with Hitler were bound to fail in any case. If the west had had a credible threat to bring to the table in the first place, there would have been no need for negotiations. Negotiations with the USSR were not conducted on parity; they were conducted to explain to the Soviets where the line was beyond which, if they crossed it, we would unleash our power. That is the real thrust behind negotiating from strength: both power and will. We did not address Hitler that way, and he knew it aforehand.

He wanted Poland and a good part of Eastern Europe under his control. He had public negotiations with the West and made demands that he knew we would not accept (conceding him several countries). At the same time he was using this public negotiation as leverage in secret talks with Hitler to get HIM to concede those countries.

I suspect that neither Hitler nor Stalin had any intention to keep whatever agreement that was reached. Hitler broke it first, but I doubt Stalin would have hesitated to break it if he thought he had the advantage. But this just proves that negotiations with dishonorable people will only get you temporary relief if any and I agree it only gave Hitler and Stalin more time to build their armies.

The point is sinz's little fantasy of how negotiations could have worked on Hitler is just not realistic and not supported by facts.

Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.

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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle

1) Britain was broke from WWI and didn't not have an effective military option. By the time Munich came, the British could not do any militarily.

2) The Conservative Party (which Chamberlain was the leader) felt they could "work" with Hitler because they wanted to use Germany as a shield against Stalin and Russia. They saw Communism as a bigger threat than Nazi's. And they had a point - communist terrorists were organizing all over Europe.

3) This example has almost nothing to do with today's situation.

"Broadly speaking, liberalism emphasizes individual rights and equality of opportunity. ... including extensive freedom of thought and speech, limitations on the power of governments, the rule of law, the free exchange of ideas, a market or mixed economy,

I am taking Obama and his hacks literally at their word –

He does not support “engagement” with terrorists, which means he has no intentions in betrothal to any terrorists. I guess Obama just intends to live with them without the benefit of marriage.
I hope Michelle is proud.

Now he has advocated sitting down so that we can better understand their position. Obama also wants to increase foreign aid to the terrorist havens in hopes that a better educated terrorist will be more manageable.

M Penny

That begs the all-important question. Does Obama oppose gay terrorist marriage?

If a main argument against gay marriage is that marriage is intended for procreation and perpetuation of the species...then wouldn't you want gay terrorist marriage?

hit two libs with one speech!!

Except he might wanna cut that number in half, in regards to the terrorist appeasement traitors on the other side of the aisle, but hell, who needs numbers, they aren't real Americans anyway. Either way there was no better man on hitting our enemies in the mouth and killing some terrorists. No wonder Hamas is praying for Obama.

The trouble with our friend John McCain isn't that he's ignorant, but that he knows so much that isn't so.

"We believe in the matchless value of every man, woman, and child. So we insist that the people of Israel have the right to a decent, normal, and peaceful life, just like the citizens of *every other nation*."

Got that, Hamas?

Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion

whoever wrote that speech.

absentee
Also Find Me Here.

this speech looks like it could have just as likely been delivered by Senator McCain.

[And whoever the speech writer was should be hired by the McCain camp.]

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

Barack who?

"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill

b*tch-slap. Heh.
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Just a typical, small town, white girl...

Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion

Evil cannot perceive evil; darkness cannot recognize darkness. That's why we need light to recognize darkness...Else it's just more of the blind leading the blind.

The left and the MSM are not an exception to this law of human nature; rather they are exemplars.

And Rightly So!

absentee
Also Find Me Here.

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Molon Labe!

Notice how the ISRAELI PARLIAMENT and Elie Wiesel were CLAPPING when President Bush finished that sentence?

Are they in on the "cast political aspersions on poor defenseless Obama" also?!

"Small town folks get bitter after which they cling to guns or religion, or antipathy to people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment."

emphasis here for now. Let it play out for a day or so, and then when the press comes calling for a statement, give them the same one the WH Press Secretary gave.

___________________________________
Just like PayPal, except it's free and a $25 bonus to sign up!

So did Lieberman. Looks like this was a coordinated attack after all.

Good God, could there be life in the McCain Campaign yet?

Olbermann's reaction tonight should be a video for the Ages.

"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it"-Winston Churchill

You have stated more than once that McCain would cave and defend Obama. Instead, he unloaded with both barrels to the point that the libs are whining about how unfair McCain is. Please admit you were maligning the guy unfairly..

"Small town folks get bitter after which they cling to guns or religion, or antipathy to people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment."

Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion

n/t

That doesn't really explain Israelites position then. Are they just plain crazy to want to talk with Hamas?

The greatest single cause of Atheism today is Christians who profess Jesus with their lips & then go and deny him by their lifestyle. That's what an unbelieving world simply finds..unbelievable -Brennan Manning

The problem with Iran is that it's leadership has declared eliminationist aims toward a longstanding American ally and is, at the same time, pursuing atomic weapons and the means to deliver them.

The Democratic argument is that we haven't pursued any negotiations with the Iranians. That is not true. We have pursued backchannel negotiations with the Iranians since 2000. The heart of the Democratic argument, which is left unsaid, is that we haven't made enough concessions to the Iranian Theocrats. This is absurd. Iran's regime is Fascist and Expansionist. They are not that way because of something we did to them.

"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it"-Winston Churchill

That's a good point about the back-channel negotiations. They have been occurring, and it makes Bush's statement somewhat odd - since on the face of it, he's saying that all negotiations are appeasement. Which I assume he didn't literally mean, since this back-channel talk has been going on.

I think you're right too about the implicit Democratic argument being a variant of "not enough concessions". But I'm not sure I buy the idea that Iran is expansionist. It seems to me more like they are acting as any country is supposed to - securing their own existence through whatever means possible (building nuclear weapons, establishing allies, etc.). That doesn't mean they're expansionist though, as I (personally) haven't heard any rhetoric from them or anyone else about expanding their territory. So the comparison to Nazism falls apart there (considering Germany had a long history of expansionism prior to 1939). It seems to me like Iran is just (rationally, from their perspective) trying to gain a better power position.

If that's the case though, then their power can also be increased through various incentives that we and the world community can offer them in lieu of military power. I'm not saying it will work, but it's an option. And to my knowledge (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), the negotiations I've heard about with Iran have largely been threats and sanctions, and not incentives. To put it simply, the carrot and the stick work best together.

While Iran might not necessarily be expansionist, they're looking to spread their influence. They supress their people, won't recognize Israel, and have been partially to blame for some of the attacks on our soldiers within Iraq. What's there negotiate? We don't give in, in hopes of receiving something in return. Doesn't work that way, never has.

Want incentives? Join the rest of the world by acting accordingly.

"We don't give in, in hopes of receiving something in return. Doesn't work that way, never has."

You're absolutely right, but this isn't what negotiations are about. Negotiations are about giving up something in return for something. We don't offer incentives just for fun; we offer them only if they agree to stop certain actions.

"Want incentives? Join the rest of the world by acting accordingly."

The problem with this is that countries like Russia and China are more than willing to get mutual benefits with Iran regardless of whether they act according to international norms. If we want them to change their behavior, we have to do more than threaten and push them into the arms of rising powers.

We offered the same to North Korea. What have we received yet? Agreements so often turn into lies. We'll do what we've always done and hold our ground. When they're ready to talk, we'll be ready but they haven't made an effort. What we don't need to do is lie to ourselves that we can somehow entice them by offering them a piece of candy. Again it doesn't work that way.

I'll admit that I haven't followed the North Korea situation too closely, but I thought there had been some definite progress made there? Haven't they stopped their nuclear weapons program? Correct me if I'm wrong, by all means.

Quite frankly, once the Chia Pet got past the embarrassment of being caught in the middle of the Syrian Desert trying to build a processing plant for the Iranians, he decided to proceed.

Too many Conservatives have jumped to conclusions about these talks. They did close down Pyongbyon. However, the North Koreans got caught with their pants down by the Israelis and there was a lot of wounded pride and criminal activity that had to be brushed under the rug. They only recently released a declaration about their atomic program.

It's a dying regime. Someone will put 9 grams in the back of Kim's head within the next 5 years, probably on orders from Beijing. The guy is a huge pain in the a$$ and he's costing a lot of people a lot of money. Once the Chinese decide they can make more money off a united, neutralist Korean peninsula, Kim Jong Il will end up like Sonny Corleone trying to go through the New Jersey Turnpike tollbooth.

Remember what happened to Moe Green at the end of Godfather, Part I? That's Kim Jong Il. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it"-Winston Churchill

...have always been about two things, Iraq and their nuclear weapons program. Once we get past that, then we can talk about normalization. Democrats assert, wrongly, that Bush hasn't been negotiating at all. Republicans assert, rightly, that we have been negotiating, and these guys still want to send the Jews to the Ovens.

Iran isn't expansionist in the territorial sense, but one of the reasons a regional power like Iran builds the atomic bomb is to attain regional hegemony. It's shortsighted as hell, but there you have it. Hegemony is like empire without the borders. Their objective is rather simple: make the Iranian Embassy the most important building in any Arab Capitol. They see atomic weapons as a shortcut to that ambition. Hitler was just foolish enough to start his conquests too early, before he had atomic weapons.

Your assumption is that we have only been threatening them. You could not be more wrong. We have offered them all sorts of incentives. Rice's diplomacy has been all about incentives. A cursory check of Google could confirm this. However, the Iranians have other plans and have continued their arms buildup and their atomic weapons program. They have also continued their eliminationist rhetoric against Israel, most recently on the Anniversary of the founding of the State. Iran has spurned the offers of the EU-3, the US, and Russia for one reasons: it wants a weapon. Further, they have been smuggling weapons into Iraq to kill American soldiers. Lastly, they have fielded a brigade of troops into Lebanon to stir the pot there and prepare for another Missile War in the Levant.

It's not as if the Iranians have displayed peaceful intent. Barack Obama shows no sign of understanding this.

This is simple stuff. There's no reason to blame the U.S..

"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it"-Winston Churchill

" Got to love the Lord for making things like that."
Morally Compromised

I agree with much of your analysis, and it's probably the best reply I've gotten on here. I do think Iran has regional hegemony in mind, but the big problem with that goal is that Israel is there. Two large military powers with nuclear weapons tend to be more stable (see the Cold War for the obvious example), than a multipolar system that seems to dominate the Middle East right now. So that could be an inadvertent benefit of Iran having nuclear weapons. No one would be willing to attack each other for fear of reprisal, and so countries would instead focus on economic power. That being said, Israel (obviously hoping to retain their power position) wants to deny Iran the possibility of nuclear weapons, and I think everyone outside of Shiite Islam can agree that's a good idea. I don't buy arguments that Iranian leadership is crazy or suicidal because everything they do makes more sense in terms of straightforward power politics. Rhetoric is merely hiding their political positioning.

I do think you're right to say "Iran has spurned the offers of the EU-3, the US, and Russia for one reasons: it wants a weapon." Our goal should be to stop this from occurring, but I don't agree with those who think that overwhelming force will work. We can certainly destroy Iran (or their capabilities) easily, but not without huge unintended consequences backfiring on us. So there has to be some fine line between aggression and negotiation that doesn't leave the US worse off.

Anyways, to be clear, I'm not blaming the US for these problems. I think they are an important player in this situation, but they're working with forces outside of their control.