Got Rice?

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Last updated on July 1st, 2012 at 05:27 am

So, some very interesting rumors began circulating recently around the blogs on the “internets,” as our glorious president would say. It appears Secretary of State Condi Rice is lobbying for the VP slot on John McCain’s ticket. Don Senor, a long-time Republican strategist publicly opened the door to this tidbit this week, ironically, on ABC’s “This Week.” Senor told host George Stephanopoulos, “Condi Rice has been actively campaigning for this.”

This morning (April 7), the State Department issued a statement denying Rice has been proactively politicking the McCain campaign or any other senior officials in the Republican Party. The denial then went on to stipulate that she was not interested, is not interested, and doesn’t want the job at all. As if right on cue, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack released a statement saying, “I don’t know how many ways she can say no.”

This denial I find hilarious. As if a denial in politics is anything but an affirmation. It’s prototypical Beltway Business—“I’m not saying, I’m just saying…” Denials coming from any politician already need to be taken with a silo of salt. But coming from anyone involved with the Bush Administration, the masters of dissembling and Orwellian doublespeak, we can simply assume that Rice is in fact lobbying and is very interested. After all, under Orwellian/Bushian doublespeak, black is white, freedom is slavery and war is peace, right? So this must mean no is yes.

Rice should try to gain an objective perspective on this. I’m not sure there are many fragments of the American populace who still believe anything coming out of the Bush White House or its affiliates. Remember when they claimed that Iraq indeed had WMDs? And how did that turn out? How about their celebration of “Mission Accomplished?” And let’s not forget their most recent pretense that US Attorneys weren’t fired for not succumbing to the White House’s pressures to prosecute only Democrats ahead of the big November election. By the way, how convenient was it that, of all the emails this administration has sent, these emails documenting the US Attorneys scandal happen to be missing or destroyed?

Plainly, if Rice, or anyone associated with GWB, which stands for Great Wave of Bullsh*t, says it ain’t so, it’s so.

Now, on to the matter at hand. Assuming Rice does want to be VP. It does make some sense for her to be added to the McCain ticket. She is both African American and a woman, so regardless of whether Hillary or Obama win the Democratic nomination, she essentially aids in neutralizing at least some of the glitzy notoriety. The Republicans can try to claim some form of ‘progress” or stake in being “agents of change.”

And McCain himself did recently say that his campaign is in the process of compiling a list of ALL POSSIBLE candidates. Hands down, Rice would be a possible candidate. She has a long history in government (I won’t say public service because what she and Bush Co. does isn’t public service), has held some high-level positions and seems intelligent and cultured.

And besides, she’s so well spoken. I mean, the woman can actually talk! She’s got a grasp of English and can make conversation. Isn’t that amazing?

Some Democratic strategists and voters alike are somewhat concerned about this. They’re nervous that a McCain/Rice ticket would actually draw and could potentially win. Personally, I pray that McCain picks Rice as his running mate. She’s the absolute ideal running mate to ensure that he does not get elected at all.

Sure, she’s got name recognition and can obviously play up that black thing or that woman thing. But being African American hurts you a lot more in the Republican Party than it does anywhere else in America. Except maybe golf’s Masters Tournament. But then, I highly doubt Rice would ever want to be associated with something with a name as evocative as the “Masters” Tournament.

Conservatives (especially deep south Bible belt ones) already distrust McCain. All they need is one more excuse to cement the fact that they’re staying home in November, and frankly, putting both a woman and an African American on the ticket is exactly the death knell of McCain in the minds of these backwards voters.

And any hopes that McCain held of winning the independents and undecideds just got flushed down the toilet as well. Independents and undecided voters are looking for change, something different, a drastic move away from the absolutely flawed policies and direction of the current leadership. How many of them will not have a piercing allergic reaction to seeing one of Bush’s “good ol’…well, boys,” one of Bush’s cradle mates on a major ticket again?
This would be like Gerald Ford putting Spiro Agnew, or better yet, J. Edgar Hoover on his ticket.

Rice will not serve to lift up McCain’s chances. In fact, she will do the contrary. Rice will diminish McCain’s already subjacent chances. Firstly, she can’t shake the stink, or the taint of the Bush years. Everywhere she goes, every speech she delivers, every debate she participates in, someone will doggedly ask her why America should trust her…again, after loyally lapping the feet of her wayward master for eight years?

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, independent of her confederacy with Bush, she has proven herself to be a failed leader in every step of her political career. As Bush’s National Security Advisor, she failed to alert him, the administration, frankly, anybody, to the pending 9/11 attacks. In her testimony to Congress, she made comments which I’m sure she thought was “smart” and “politique,” but came across as idiotic and damning to the rest of the nation. How is her famous quip that “[paraphrase] I don’t think anyone could have imagined the 9/11 attacks from a PDB entitled ‘Al Qaeda intends to use planes to attack America,'” going to play when either the Obama or Clinton campaign put that clip on a loop and just keep repeating it to death?

Not only that, but after 9/11, she tried to superpose her expertise on Russia and the Cold War tensions and strategies on to the blueprint to deal with Al Qaeda and the Middle East. One has nothing to do with the other, and Rice should have either brought in true experts and listened to them, or stepped down because she had no history, understanding or expertise. Like her “papa,” George W., she had to learn on the job and we all see how horribly that turned out.
Then, as a major architect of the Invasion of Iraq, she, along with co-conspirators Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz have led the country to failure, and if we persist to spend nearly $12 billion a month on that folly, soon it will lead the country to ruin.

I didn’t quite keep count, but I believe that’s more than three strikes against her. But, like I said, I certainly hope McCain puts her on the ticket because then we can all truly begin to write the requiem on McCain’s hopes of becoming president.