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Originally Posted by roachboy
i dunno--i was teaching at stanford while rice was provost, and i was less than impressed with her. very much less than impressed. but she seemed of a piece with the place, if you factored in the hoover institution.
if you hang around academicworld long enough, you learn that factoids like "she graduated college when she was 19" are no more than factoids--past a certain point, they indicate nothing.
i am not surprised by her nomination--she seems closer to bush politically than powell did. and i suspect the smear-powell element that you see coming from the right of the right is a function of it being evident that powell was more moderate than bush. rather than say this, however, you get "powell was more style than substance".
which is par for the course.
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excellent and true, I can remember Powell accepting the Sec. of State job in 2000 as being a great victory for the Republicans. When he failed to follow the Wolfowitz foreign policy or Rumsfeld military policy he was ostracized.
Rice was particularly unimpressive during the 9/11 hearings during which she refused to answer pointed questions and was easily flustered.
Although I may have disagreed with the cause, I found Powell to be a person of not a little substance and intelligence during the 1991 gulf war.
If I had been forced to give the presentation that Powell gave to the UN security council I would resign too. Powell's "good soldier" ethic seems to be the only thing that kept him from resigning much earlier.