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State Department spokesman Sean Rice has been responsive and cordial in his dealings with us. I spoke with him this week at the end of what must h

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It’s good that they’re blogging.

I second that, fryguy. We will have a window on their thinking.

Condeleeza Rice is already signaling the Arabs that they can expect a warm welcome at the conference, all they have to do is show up and she and the State Department will make sure that Israel is hammered good and proper.
Why do I say this?  Well it turns out that, at least according to Ms. Rice and her State Department, the Israeli bombing of a Syrian missile depot and storehouse for Hizballah weaponry last September was entirely unnecessary, and indeed, the Israelis received American clearance for this bombing by lies and misinformation.
Now President Bush and his Vice President Dick Cheney disagree with Ms. Rice and her characterizations of Israel, but since Ms. Rice will be the mover behind the international conference, I have to assume she is trying to curry favor with the Arabs and at least induce their participation, if not their cooperation.  As far as Rice is concerned, Israel and her security problems can go to hell.

Miguel Garroté, a quadralingual Swiss, wrote about Condoleeza Rice and the upcoming Annapolis meeting on October 8: http://leblogdrzz.over-blog.com/article-12919996-6.html#anchorComment

The article is in French; it is extremely harsh on Ms. Rice and on what Mr. Garroté saw as a lack of preconditions essential for any successful peace--what Mr. Johnson asked Sean Rice about.

And let’s hope that Dipnotes--the blog name, not the blog--disappears by tomorrow, at the earliest. It’s not the best of titles. American English has a term that’s likely been used on certain blogs that appear to attract people with limited language skills, to describe people other than what Foggy Bottom types think of themselves: contemptible, weak, stupid, jerks. The present blog title is too close to the undesirable word.

Reminds me of when I was a business reporter and company N formed an Exploratory Research Division. Not being mean, I didn’t exploit that in anything I wrote for my newspaper, but I did remind a PR guy what the acronym would be for the place where people would do exploratory research. The name was quickly changed. I have often wondered whether anything I said was a factor, or some guy told his 12-year-old son at dinner what the name would be, and the kid clued Dad in.

Ms. Rice has become a major disappointment. What happens to people’s sanity when they go to the US State Dept.? Common sense, belief in country and ideals, standing up for what is right just goes out the window. I’d hoped (obviously incorrectly) that Ms. Rice would have had the chutzbah to withstand the anti-American, pacifist attitude of the State Department - apparently I was wrong.

You know, I don’t think Mitt will win the nomination but whoever does win, ought to put him in charge of State - he has the management skills to clean up the place and heaven knows, it sure needs it. Then he could take on the CIA and FBI. Heck, he could become far more valuable cleaning house that running the country. Also, put Bolton in at the UN - they’d have a hissy fit and a half.

I like Mitt a lot but he can’t beat Hillary so we need someone else. But he could do a terrific job bringing standards and management to a few government agencies that badly need these skills.

Tuesday - 11 October 2007 11:48 AM

I second that, fryguy. We will have a window on their thinking.

Are You ...

Sure you really want to see that?  The PROCESS could be interesting - like how they are able to suspend all common sense and work against the will of the POTUS and the best interests of Americans.

For A ...

“Window on their thinking”, simply try navel-gazing eight hours per day and you TOO could become a State Department staffer.

As For Ms. Rice ...

Eran has it right - WTF ever happened to her?  Is it something in the water over there?

<sigh>

Oh Ye of little faith! Better to know than stew on pure speculation on their thought processes. There has to be a comment section, or a place for response/s which they have to view sometime. Who knows, you might influence them to change their ways.