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What a nincowpoop...what a gullibull!

Still, she's had some crappy assignments, like most career state officers. I don't know the reasons for this, and I'm not sure we should be jumping on board the Powell-bashing just yet without the info. It sounds awful, but there has to be more to this. Doesn't there? Is our State Dept that stupid, to let this happen and then to PROMOTE the woman back to Foggy Bottom? Don't answer yet...

Remember, the promotion is fairly recent. And the ambassador slot in Pakistan is obviously a career diplomat slot right now, but it's one that could certainly have been handled differently, earlier, if the White House had wanted it to be.

I want to know more before I jump on the 'dump the dyke' bandwagon. Sounds 100% grade-A stupid, but I have a hard time imagining even career State people just being 100% grade-A stupid.

Over time I have come to believe that the State Department functions on its own agenda, independent of whomever is the President. I think this incident is reflective of many in the State Department who don't give a warm cup of spit for what any given President thinks. Oh, they'll give lip service to what he wants, and I know this is a wide generalization, to be sure. But they know that Presidents come and go, and they will be there for a long, long time.

I don't have any given book to refer you to, but if you have the time, there should be a lot of material you can research to illuminate just how obtuse and obstructionist the State Department can be. Sometimes it seems like downright ignorance and sometimes that is exactly what it is. At other times, it is institutional arrogance. I wasn't impressed with Powell, but I don't blame him for the attitudes of people in the State Department. I am pleased with Condoleeza Rice, but remember this: no matter what she does, no matter how she shakes the place up, she only has a few years there. And then, things return to normal - and daffy.