Ex-Ce-lent, the Iranians will get there power plants and bombs...
Posted on 11/21/2005 7:09:38 PM PST by dervish
A story circulating in Washington, perhaps apocryphal, has it that late one evening during last year's annual Munich Conference on Security Policy, after the day's discussions were finished and a few drinks had been downed, Richard Holbrooke began a sentence by saying, "When John Kerry is president and I'm secretary of state and Nicholas Burns here is undersecretary of state for political affairs ..." Mr. Kerry went on to lose the election…
‘snip’
Mr. Holbrooke had written a glowing report in the Washington Post predicting that Mr. Burns would be in the new State Department team, which he described as "among the very best professionals of the current generation." He said their foreign policy would be "more centrist, oriented toward problem-solving, essentially non-ideological, and focused on traditional diplomacy." Mr. Holbrooke got almost all the appointments he predicted (and praised) correct - including Assistant Secretary Daniel Fried, Assistant Secretary C. David Welch, and Assistant Secretary Christopher R. Hill.
Such effusive praise of the Bush administration's team for State from the man who would have most likely led the State Department in a Kerry administration (sorry, Senator Biden) tells a lot about the state of things in Foggy Bottom. President Bush won the 2004 election, a contest fought largely on foreign policy issues. Mr. Bush presented the platform for continuing America's war on terror by tackling tyrannical regimes and democratizing the Middle East. Mr. Kerry ran on a platform of working "more with our European allies," which the American people knew meant ignoring the British, Italians, and others who joined the war in Iraq, and instead making nice with the French and Germans. But the staffing hasn't worked out the way the voters might have expected.
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
It's not who the Secretary of State is, it's the entrenched leftists who populate the department and constantly undermine the President that are the problem.
The state department is overwhelmingly lefist...so much so that they could be a mini-UN right in Washington, DC.
Ex-Ce-lent, the Iranians will get there power plants and bombs...
The State Dept. has looked/been like a moveon cluser f-ck for a looong time.
term limits??
more on Burns from the article --
"He did a stint as spokesman for President Clinton's first-term secretary of state, Warren Christopher, where his service included criticizing Mayor Giuliani for kicking Yasser Arafat out of a concert at Lincoln Center, saying that Mr. Arafat deserved to be treated with "respect, dignity, and hospitality."
Maybe, just maybe, if Able Danger, the leaks from CIA, State, FBI, Justice and that vermin Sandy Berger's escapades ever get completely brought to light, we can all sit and watch some real fun.
Right after a couple hundred of the major players get perpwalked to the nearest Redline Brig, the rest of the Clintonista moles will get their pink slip, a document box for their personal effects and ten minutes with armed guards in tow to gather their stuff before they all get shipped out of the country.
They will probably all enjoy France.
Unfortunatly, most of the State Dept's workers are unionized GS workers. Almost impossible to fire, and leave when they retire.
I have never understood why Bush is so fond of people who hate him and so indifferent to his allies.
What, no jobs for Sandy Berger and Joe Wilson?
John Kerry is an idiot; he comes from Mass, home of the idiots and drunks; he has no imagination, he doesn't even know what planet he is on; the only reason his missus married him, she needed a tax break.
We should trade him for Bin Laden, not a dime's worth the difference in either one of them.
Yes, but they can be reassigned to Burundi. And fired if they refuse the assignment. Or maybe the new embassy in Nuuk (Godthab), Greenland.
"I have never understood why Bush is so fond of people who hate him and so indifferent to his allies."
The thing that never ceases to amaze me is that "instant gratification" immediate expectation that seems to be the benchmark for success.... Adults understand how to suceed. Western civilizaion, before socialism, was capable of deferred gratification and built both great minds and cultures. Today, it is sad that most of the world reacts without a longterm plan to the socialist CNN style cycle of gratification.
Trust your State Department a little more and understand that your President is being successful - that is why the democrats who ascribe to the world socialist viewpoint have gone to thier nuclear option of opposition.
"Trust your State Department a little more and understand that your President is being successful"
Sorry I don't see it that way, and I am not one to blindly "trust." The State Department is filled with Arabist realists who do not ascribe to Pres Bush's democratizing philosophy, who suck up to Saudi and Arab oil interests, and worship stability.
As far as I can see, John Bolton is the only good man to have come in or out of State in a long while. I trust him.
State has another problem former Secretary of State George Schulz understood well.
"Let me conclude with a story from my time in office. When an ambassador had made it through the hurdles of nomination and confirmation, I invited him or her to my office and said, “Before you can leave, you have one more test. Go over to that globe and show me that you can identify your country.” Without exception, the ambassador-to-be spun the globe and located the country to which he would be posted.
One day, the late Mike Mansfield, already many years our ambassador to Japan and an old friend from my previous times in the cabinet, came in for a visit just before he was to return to Tokyo. I told him about my little test and said, “Mike, how about you?” He and I laughed, and he went to the globe. Mike put his hand on the United States and said, “Here’s my country.”
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/diplomacy.20020611.shultz.workofdiplomacy.html
As far as I can see, John Bolton is the only good person to come in or out of State in a long time.
Correction, that's cluster %&^*.
"It's not who the Secretary of State is, it's the entrenched leftists who populate the department and constantly undermine the President that are the problem".
thank you!!!
I agree with what you're saying and I think I can imagine where you're coming from... my Mr. Burns post earlier was all in good humor. Seriously though, I bet trying to balance our relations with so many countries, each with their own unique, deep seated opinions and theories of American foreign policy [half of which are "straight out of a Tom Clancy novel" kind of conspiracy theories] is extremely difficult. My estimation is that the there are times that are really satisfying and no one hears a word about them and others where something goes a little bit wrong and the press is drooling for the story. Personally, I’m looking forward to the day when Iran drops its nuclear ambitions, stops supporting international terrorism and joins the community of nations. I believe it unlikely that Iran will do these things with its current government but as you say, we are all entitled to our own opinions.
I am of the opinion that our great nation cannot have too many partners for peace! Although I don't know your quality of work, I'll assume you do great work so I can simply say, keep up the great work!
Hey, Jumper.......sorry about the bad attitude.
I get caught around a TV set any more than ten or fifteen minutes anymore when the "news" is on, and it screws up my disposition for half a month. Spent most of this last weekend with one ear out for the latest on the House Friday Nite Fight, so imagine I'll be like a bear with a sore paw until Easter.
My bad........I owe you one.
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