By any measure, Hillary Clinton is an empty suit next to Condoleezza Rice, whose personal history is useful in realizing what Hillary’s is not.[read_more]
Condi Rice grew up in the segregated South and rose, on her own merits, to become President George H.W. Bush’s chief advisor on Soviet Union issues, helping the President successfully manage the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany, and collapse of the Soviet empire. Rice, again on her own merits, rose to become Stanford University’s youngest provost ever. Later, in the administration of Bush 43, she served as National Security Advisor when the country dealt with the aftermath of 9/11, and succeeded Colin Powell as Secretary of State. In that time she managed the difficult task of holding together the U.S.-led coalition in the global war on terrorism, and her personal diplomacy is credited with repairing badly fractured relationships with key allies in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. In short, she’s a very accomplished Republican woman.
Hillary Clinton practiced law at the Rose Law Firm, best known for its involvement in the Whitewater scandal. After that, she was First Lady of Arkansas, and First Lady of the United States before claiming she left office “dead broke.” From her $1.7 million newly-purchased home in New York, Hillary Clinton then was elected to the U.S. Senate. She worked hard, and earned those votes, but no one can doubt that she would likely have never been in a position to run or win without her husband having been elected President. After an unremarkable stint in the Senate, Clinton ran for president herself in 2008, tapping deeply into her husband’s network of donors and political professionals to do so. The eventual victor in that race patched up the split between the Clintons and the new Democrat party by appointing Hillary to become the third female Secretary of State, a job where she failed miserably and left with so little in the way of accomplishments that she had to brag about how many miles she traveled.
However, there is so much subjectivity and context involved that comparing the careers and accomplishments of Rice and her successor isn’t necessarily a meaningful or fair exercise, I concede. But this next comparison is.
As reported by Politico, in 2014 Hillary Clinton was invited to speak at a fundraising event for the Boys and Girls Club of Long Beach, California. She charged the group $200,000. By contrast, when Condoleezza Rice spoke to the same group 5 years earlier, she was paid $60,000, but afterwards donated 100% of the fee back to the Boys and Girls Club.
That reveals a lot about each person’s class, and character. What else is revealing is that the Boys and Girls Club raised more money, even apart from the speaking fees, on Condi’s appearance than they did for Hillary Clinton’s. That says a lot not just about how these two women are regarded, but also about the relative charitableness of the people drawn to the respective events.
Clinton’s fees, meanwhile, were “donated” to the Clinton Foundation…alongside donations from countries and business interests seeking to profit from proximity to the Clintons or lucrative decisions influenced by the State Department:
During a broader increase in military exports under the Obama administration, more than $300 billion worth of weapons shipments were approved to 20 countries that were or have since become Clinton Foundation donors.
I have two things to say about this: First, if an ungenerous, unaccomplished matriarch of a sordid band of influence peddlers is the best the Democrats can do in 2016, I like our chances. Second, I miss Condoleezza Rice!
3 comments
Not to belittle former Bush Administration National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condolezza Rice’s many admirable personal qualities but you could just about pull a random name out of any major metropolitan US phone directory, excluding the local federal or state penal lockups, and likely find a better, more truthful, generous human being then either Hillary or Bill Clinton. Not too difficult of a task.
President Barack Obama’s perpetual excuse mantra that it is all Bush’s fault, while ridiculous in its constant repetition, is grounded in some reality in the foreign policy arena as both the Middle East, North Korea and former Soviet Union policies, that he inherited from the Bush presidency and Secretary of State Rice were very poorly conceived and ineffectively implemented prior to him entering office. Obama’s gross incompetence and lack of any foreign policy credentials certainly didn’t help to set the ship back on an even keel but Bush and Rice’s Iraq intervention and subsequent massive national wealth transfer to support a nation building strategy debacle (1.7 trillion to date minus future veteran benefit expenditures over the next 4 decades likely putting it at closer to 6 trillion), focusing our limited military resources post 2001 Afghanistan invasion almost solely on a faltering Al Qaeda group while relying on silly “axis of evil” rhetoric in his 2002 State of the Union speech to address terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, while in fact effectively passing the buck on Iran’s fostering the diversification of worldwide terror organizations underwritten with Iranian cash infusions and its nuclear weaponization programs to UN imposed sanctions that were clear to any impartial observer not an effective deterrent.
Bush and Rice’s policies were in effect instrumental in fanning the fires we see today in the disintegration of Syra, the rise of ISIS, and the escalating sectarian conflict in Libya and on the Horn of Africa expanding Iranian influence while outflanking US allies in the region. Obama has simply stood by passively as is his nature, post Arab spring, and watched these Bush and Rice initiated policies consume the Middle east and put Israel at grave threat. You may miss Condolezza Rice and her Bush foreign policy legacies but its my fervent hope she never again comes close to a position of policy influence in the United States. We will be dealing with the fallout damage of her political disruptions and squandered national wealth in the Middle East for a generation or more.
Steve – I like Condi Rice and always have. I have never heard her say anything outlandish or embarrassing. But in this age of diversity in which there is unsaid pressure to have a woman on the ticket or to appoint the first black or Hispanic or Asian to such and such a position, I have to be suspicious of people purely “rising on their merit”. The sword even cuts for white men. For example, does anyone think Joe Biden was the sharpest tool in the Democratic shed back in 2008 to be placed on the ticket? We all know why the first black presidential nominee chose Uncle Joe. In 2015 there are not that many people on the national stage who rise strictly on their merit. Political considerations normally override other criteria.
All true, Mark. But, at the very least, I hardly think Rice made her way onto the National Security Council staff under Brent Scowcroft because she was black. No electoral or political considerations there. Was that a consideration when she was named National Security Advisor? Perhaps, but doesn’t seem highly likely. Secretary of State…a very public-facing position with political ramifications? You bet that her race became a plus factor. One would be foolish to try to deny that. But one would be equally foolish to suggest she wasn’t eminently qualified for the post by that point, too.