NYT: As Her Star Wanes, Rice Tries to Reshape Legacy ("Iraq is a stain she can't remove")

[Amerigo Vespucci]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/01/washington/01rice.html?ex=1346299200&en=78e5f04156801c36&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

There was a time when, perhaps more than Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama, Condoleezza Rice seemed to have the best shot at becoming the first woman or the first African-American to be president. But that was before she sounded public alarms based on faulty intelligence to justify the Iraq war, telling CNN, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” It was before a former top Bush administration colleague, David Kay, charged with finding unconventional weapons after the Iraq invasion, referred to Ms. Rice in Bob Woodward’s “State of Denial” as “probably the worst national security adviser since the office was created.”

Today, Ms. Rice, 52, continues to have far more star appeal than any other of Mr. Bush’s top advisers. Just last month, GQ magazine ranked her the most powerful person in Washington. Forbes has twice ranked her as the world’s most powerful woman, and Time has listed her as one of the world’s most influential people four times. But a lot of her gloss has diminished under the steady drumbeat of exposés and tell-all books about the unraveling of the Bush administration and specifically about her inability, as national security adviser, to effectively arbitrate the running turf war between Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld over Iraq policy, a war which she, and President Bush, allowed Mr. Rumsfeld to win.

Now Ms. Rice is working hard to reshape her legacy in her remaining 16 months in office. She is cooperating with a range of authors who have lined up to write books about her: “The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy,” by The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, comes out next week, while “Condoleezza Rice: An American Life,” by The New York Times’s Elisabeth Bumiller is due out in December. “Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power,” by Marcus Mabry, now an editor at The Times, came out in May.

Beyond trying to influence the historical record, Ms. Rice is trying hard to rewrite her legacy to include something more than Iraq. Her colleagues and friends say that she has accepted that Iraq is a stain that she probably cannot remove before she leaves office. So she has thrown herself into shoring up the rest of her legacy, zeroing in in recent months on Arab-Israeli peace, as a possible source of redemption.

[Adsos Letter]

1. May I just point out...

...that the stain on her dress is a lot more damning than the one on Monica's,,,

[aquart]

6. Blood is so much harder to clean, too.

[Fredda Weinberg]

2. 9/11 and those shoes

Curse her

[Hissyspit]

3. How about "Blatant Cold-Blodded Lies Are A Stain She Can't Remove"?

[saltpoint]

4. It's a shame that "Steven," the rascally Dell computer character in that

early ad, wasn't appointed National Security Advisor instead of Condoleezza Rice. I think "Steven" would have done a better job.

[regnaD kciN]

5. "Out, out, damned spot!"

I'm just waiting for her autobiography, A Special Place: My Years Under George W. Bush. :evilgrin:

[opihimoimoi]

7. Incompetent, Inept, overherhead. an Oreo Crony, and a waste of money(salary.

What on Earth did she ever do? 1st and 2nd term? Nada.

[Eurobabe]

8. Ineptitude was all we got from almost 8 yrs of

BushCo and cronies.

A fast race to the bottom, to find the stupidest, most butt-kissing group of morons to ever inhabit the White House.

[Spinzonner]

9. She wants to shore up her legacy ?

Turn States Evidence against Bush-Cheney in an Impeachment and removal effort.

If she were to survive ...

[tekisui]

10. second that!

[WinkyDink]

11. She seems to think she's both brilliant AND gorgeous. How her and Bush's egos co-exist, I don't know

[gratuitous]

12. Is it just me?

But does that picture look like Dave Chappelle in drag?

Anyway, why does Dr. Rice think that Iraq is a "stain"? George W. Bush thinks it's his crowning achievement. Karl Rove just spent an entire week telling us that it was a glorious undertaking and that years from now historians will sing the praises of the prescience of the Bush administration for its foresight in taking on "radical Islam" and crusading for the rights of overrich folks, no matter how many poor bodies they had to dump in the grinder. Why is Dr. Rice trying to distance herself from such a sparkling legacy?

[BenDavid]

15. That is a good one :D.....I would like to

ask as robin williams did in Good Morning Viet-Nam......Condi Rice, Sherry Palmer, same person, don't know. You be the judge.
To those that do not know Sherry Palmer, watch, the first three seasons of 24 and you will see palmer/rice...

Ben David

[ToeBot]

13. Arab-Israeli peace? She's absolutely deluded. nt

[BenDavid]

14. yes this stain is colored BLOOD RED!