[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: Op-Ed Columnist: Bush Administration's Biblical Exodus

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Op-Ed Columnist: Bush Administration's Biblical Exodus

November 17, 2004
 By WILLIAM SAFIRE 



 

WASHINGTON — Lord knows I have tried, over the years,
to keep Colin Powell on the grammatical strait and narrow.
And yet, announcing his resignation, the departing
secretary of state said that after the president and he had
"fulsome discussions on it, we came to mutual agreement.
..." 

Fulsome means "offensively excessive," and when two people
agree, it's always mutual. This otherwise good man is
incorrigible. 

We have had more substantive run-ins. After I recalled his
mistake in failing to overthrow Saddam when he had the
chance in 1991, Powell retorted, "Safire is getting
arrogant in his old age." True enough, but he took me aside
to apologize, and I came to admire some of his actions at
State - especially the way he spun Pakistan's prime
minister around on a dime after 9/11, which helped us
defeat the Taliban. 

In that spirit, I apologize for having quoted colleagues of
Colin's deputy, Richard Armitage, as saying he was "better
neckless than feckless." Armitage is leaving, too,
presumably to help Powell write his next best seller, "The
Secret Thoughts of Bob Woodward." 

You didn't think Bush had an exit strategy? Six loyal
cabinet members have exited so far, accompanied by a flock
of pouting spooks at Langley who bet on a Kerry victory.
More are sure to join the cabinet appointees and
bureaucrats in a mass exodus usually described as biblical.


I expected Powell to stick around a few months to see if
Arafat's death could give him a chance for shuttle
diplomacy leading to a Nobel Prize. Wrong; he probably
assumed, with reason, that the Palestinians are a long way
from controlling Hamas, no matter whom they elect in
January - and with no crackdown on violence, no serious
negotiation is likely right away. 

I also expected the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz duo of idealistic
hawks to stay firmly in place at the Pentagon well into the
new term, backed up by Dick Cheney. Right; no exodus there.


What, then, will Condi Rice's move from national security
adviser to secretary of state mean for U.S. foreign policy
in Bush's second term? 

The center of decision-making gravity will move slightly to
the right, with the necessary hard fist in a softer glove.
Powell's inclination to settle was a counterweight to
Rumsfeld's drive to win. Though the two stayed personally
compatible - remarkable near the center of power, where
differences are usually personalized - their
Weltanschauungs diverged. 

Rice took pains to stay in the policy middle and on the
operational fringe, the better to coolly advise the
president. When she goes to State, will she adopt the
Powell role as counterweight? Will she, as most Foggy
Bottom secretaries do, "go native" - be absorbed by the
accommodationist mind-set that is the hallmark of
professional diplomacy? 

Her friends tell me that she is more likely to surprise us
skeptics, and to follow the pattern of one of her mentors,
George Shultz, in taking control of the department in
subtle ways. Let's hope so. 

Condi was an effective administrator as provost at
Stanford, but has not run a strong National Security
Council staff. Her deputy, Stephen Hadley, now moving up to
replace her and well regarded by Cheney, is more
apparatchik than geostrategist. Though he will immediately
be lionized by media seeking a source, he is not yet a
player, and will find it difficult going up against his old
boss, or Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz, or Cheney. 

The secretary-designate, if not captured by State's
bureaucracy or frazzled by travel to funerals, will be more
of a player than before. At 50, she need not defer to the
silverbacks of strategy, and would be wise to depend on the
strength of her policy argument rather than on her
unlimited access to the ear of the boss. 

I like all this musical-chairing, with experienced insiders
getting upside exposure and with fresh faces soon to carry
out the Bush campaign promises. No "range of exhausted
volcanoes" will slow the action, in a phrase of Disraeli's
quoted by the re-elected Nixon. 

This president is no sore winner, and has learned the hard
way to have in hand a post-victory plan. In decisively
choosing those who stay and those who come in, he shows a
determination to win the policy battles of his second term.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/opinion/17safi.html?ex=1101705141&ei=1&en=bad9e9f402ad8dce


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