Condoleezza Rice: No, Absolutely Not – OpEd

By: Eurasia Review

July 16, 2012

By Lawrence S. Schneiderman

There has been in recent days an avalanche of speculation that Mitt Romney, presumptive Republican nominee for President, in the forthcoming United States (US) presidential election, will select former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as his running mate (Vice-President). This needs to be said as strongly as possible -- Condoleezza Rice on the 2012 Republican presidential ticket is a nightmare.

Now, this may get a little rough, so you may want to send the kids out of the room.

Condoleezza Rice is a naive and foolish person. Her records as National Security Chief and Secretary of State are an embarrassment. She is incompetent. 

Bret Stephens’, foreign-affairs columnist, for The Wall Street Journal, outstanding piece in the Journal’s May 1^st edition, said it best: Anyone But Condi. Mr. Stephens points out, “Ms. Rice was a bad national security adviser and a bad secretary of state.” He adds, “her tenure at State was notable mainly for the degree to which the bureaucracy ran her, and not the other way around.”  Mr. Stephens goes on: her preferred option (in Iraq) “to have Iraqis kill one another for a while before they get the point;” her performance on North Korea was to lift key sanctions – in exchange for exactly nothing; and, she flubbed the handling of the notorious 16 words on Iraq’s WMD in President George W. Bush’s State of the Union Address leading up to the Iraq War.

Other pundits have pointed out: that her executive know-how was chaotic, clumsy, and clueless; she had a penchant to appoint and choose personnel who’s views were more in-line with Mr. Bush’s opposition than his own; and she foolishly sought to revive the Israeli – Palestinian Arabs peace process despite a lack of interest on the part of the Palestinian Arabs, the Israelis, and her boss in the Oval Office.

From a political perspective, it can be argued that the alternative to Condoleezza Rice as Vice President is worse. Another four years of Barack Obama would be a disaster for the country, and the world. 

Yet, on the one hand, with a Republican Congress (House and Senate), Mr. Obama will have difficulty continuing his Rawlsian agenda. Another far left appointment to the Supreme Court could be blocked. But most importantly, Mr. Obama will have to deal with the economic fiasco he has created. Although, he will surely find someone or something else to lay the blame (on). Nevertheless, this in all probability will put the Democrats out of office for a generation.

On the other hand, a weak Romney presidency, aka George W. Bush, will set up the Democrats for victories in 2014 and 2016, and another radical turn to the left. Something, this time, the United States may not have the capacity to manage. Republicans would have been better off with a John Kerry victory in 2004, than what George W. Bush did to the US with his cast of incompetents, e.g., Rice, Meyers, Hughes, Gonzalez, and the McClellan brothers, to name a few. George W. Bush's incompetence and compassionate conservatism is what turned this country left and into the arms of a Chicago con man. 

It is better to loss an election than have another Republican fool for President. And, if Mr. Romney puts Condoleezza Rice on the ticket with him -- that is exactly what he is. The country thought differently in 2004, but it won't be fooled again.

To believe that with Ms. Rice on the ticket, Republicans will garner a greater percentage of the Black vote; is to believe that al-Qaeda will be friendly to America because we support Muslim regimes in the Balkans. Other Republican vice-presidential candidates may have skeletons in their closets, but Condoleezza Rice has a whole cemetery.


Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University.