Transformational Diplomacy

I'll be brief today, Bush. Promise. I'm actually suffering from an attack of the hives, which hits me from time to time for reasons I have never been able to fathom. Enough to say that it feels like your whole body is burning up, with a thousand little eruptions exploding everywhere underneath the skin and transforming into these huge areas of horribly itchy welts. Last night, I got the worst attack I've ever had, and the welts are only now, this morning, beginning to subside. If you've never had the experience, Bush, I don't recommend it.

About your Rice: to be blunt, my personal opinion is that she should not be confirmed. I'll admit I didn't sit around all day listening to her testimony, but from what I heard, and from what I read in the paper today, I remain unconvinced that she has the qualifications or the temperament to be our country's senior diplomat. On the policy front, she talks about "transformational diplomacy." What does that mean, Bush? If it means, as I think it does, that we approach diplomacy with the idea of transforming the rest of the world to our way of thinking about freedom and democracy, I happen to believe that's a terrible approach. Diplomacy, as I understand it, is about listening, negotiation, tact, give-and-take. It's only in part about persuasion.

And then if your Rice's prickly, defensive exchanges with certain senators provide the example of her personal diplomatic skills, again I say No. She could not, would not admit of any view other than her own, or to any failing on her own part or the administration's. She had to be right, all the time, every time. Oh, she mouthed a couple of admirable concepts: "The time for diplomacy is now," she declared: and diplomacy should be "a conversation, not a monologue, with the rest of the world." But she failed notably to engage in such a "conversation" with either Senator Biden or Senator Boxer, insisting against all evidence that our troop strength had always been, and continues to be, adequate to the task; and that trained Iraqi forces now total 120,000--a figure wildly in excess of the 4,000 claimed, according to Biden, by the US military experts on the ground.

And, yes, there was one brief aside conceding that "some of the [adminsitration's decisions] may not have been good." But that was brief. And it was an aside. The main thrust of your Rice's testimony did not waver from the party line, and inspired no confidence in the possibility of a change of heart and tactic for your second term. I was one of those, Bush, as I expect you know by now, who stood against your return to office. I stand against the elevation of this, your most faithful ally, to a position which supposedly represents this country to the world.

And now, back to the hives. I expect that's why I'm so crotchety this morning.