Why couldn't Dick Clarke have used some of those mind-reading skills on Osama before al-Qaida blew up the USS Cole in October 2000? Or after? To the bitter end, the official position of the Clinton administration was that it couldn't say for sure who was responsible for the Cole attack.
Apparently, liberals believe Rice compares unfavorably to Madeline Albright, whose principle accomplishment before becoming secretary of state was managing to attain the age of 60 without realizing she was Jewish. That was raw competence.
I take that back: Albright also taught at Georgetown University. Of course, American universities make professors of people like Eldridge Cleaver's wife. (Kathleen Cleaver is currently at Yale law school; Susan Rosenberg, a participant in a Brinks car robbery, teaches at Hamilton College; former Weatherman Bill Ayers is a distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago; and former Weatherman Bernardine Dohrn is the director of a legal clinic at Northwestern University.)
Or how about Clinton's first secretary of state, Warren Christopher, a lawyer whose dazzling foreign policy experience consisted of being President Carter's chief negotiator for the hostages in Iran? That's almost as impressive a resume entry as "Chief Iceberg Lookout, the Titanic," "Senior Design Engineer, the Edsel," "Navigator, Exxon Valdez," or "Writer/Executive Producer, 'Alexander.'"
The closest black woman to Bill Clinton was his secretary, Betty Currie ? whose principal function was penciling in "Monica" on Clinton's "To Do" list every morning. The closest black woman to most of the liberals accusing Rice of being incompetent is the maid they periodically accuse of stealing from the liquor cabinet.
George Bush chose a black woman to be his top adviser on national security. Now he wants her as his secretary of state. And when she becomes the first black female secretary of state, Rice will replace the first black secretary of state ? both appointed by right-wing Republican George Bush. The entire Bush Cabinet is starting to look like an Image Awards telecast minus the fisticuffs and gunplay.
Democrats are terrified that black people might start to notice.
Say, there's a black woman standing next to President Bush ... who is that?
Never mind! It's probably somebody he's arresting!
It's extremely valuable for Democrats to be able to campaign in black neighborhoods while talking about the "white boys" running the Republican Party. When she was managing Al Gore's 2000 campaign, Donna Brazile said she was not going to "let the white boys win in this election." (If I had a nickel for every time I've confused Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, Terry McAuliffe, Paul Begala and James Carville for the Jackson Five ...)
Sure enough, Brazile was instrumental in not letting a couple of white boys ? named Al and Joe ? win the election. I guess that's liberals' idea of a "competent" black woman.