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November 17, 2004
Had it with Hadley
So Condi Rice is going to be Secretary of State. No commentary necessary. Holy catz. I've just watched The Day after Tomorrow, and a ten-degree-per-minute temperature drop in NYC is nothing compared to the spectre of Secretary Rice.
But it is worth pointing out, too, that she will be replaced as National Security Advisor by her now-deputy, Stephen Hadley. According to today's NPR, Hadley has been a servant of every Republican administration since Nixon. And what a loyal servant he is. Colin Powell was willing to argue for a war he thought was a mistake. (Most of the 100,000+ dead people probably think it was a pretty big mistake, too.). In the same vein, Hadley was willing to take the blame for some of the falsified data used to "justify" that war. As Josh Marshall observes, Bush is locking himself within a fortress of good-servant yes-men: "[T]he shift is not toward right, left or center, but toward more direct White House control and the silencing of dissident voices in the civil service." Bush can spend the next four years cushioned from any debate, any disagreement whatsoever. And whenever he screws up, a piece of his fortress will step forward and take the rap.
Posted by senioritis at November 17, 2004 08:33 PM