I'm with you. Newt did a very good job of "not" personalizing it. We are blessed to have a very popular, very talented Sec of State, and his problems in trying to steer this ship are very evident. If someone of his caliber can't do it, the problem is institutional. And of course, the problems pre-date his arrival by, oh, sixty years? So the attacks are well focused, well aimed, and well needed.
State's problems are similar to those of any institution that is not held to account. A peace-time Pentagon becomes very political, because war-fighting becomes a secondary skill. But a war-time Pentagon, led by someone determined to win, begins to find its soul again, and war-fighting skills begin to find themselves in appreciation again, if only for a season.
The same thing should apply at State. A war-time State Dept should find itself needing and promoting the kind of men that win diplomatic wars. Either that, or it finds itself sidelined and bypassed, with the important negotiations being handled by the Pentagon, or the CIA, or the President's insiders, and it will find itself being publicly criticized and mocked.
State isn't used to being pounded publicly, and held publicly accountable, but it will be good for it... builds character.
I agree, but with State's history in the Cold War, with Old Europe, and most damning-their inablility to answer Newt's criticism with reason and logic rather than the politics of personal destruction, I fear things are worse than a good "tightening of the belt" by some public mea culpas might bring.
They're too defensive, call me conspiratorial, but they are hiding something.