Condi Rice is one of the smartest and most capable people to serve in Washington in decades, with wisdom and common sense as well, very unusual in Washington DC.
Having said that, in an era when conflict between Islam and the West is the greatest since the Crusades, we are making a chronic mistake choosing women for Sec. State. We put WOMEN in the role of negotiating with Muslim women haters.
Over and over since George HW we keep making the same cultural error. Bush 1 sent a woman ambassador to Saddam Hussein, an insult and indicator to Hussein that he and his interests were of little importance to Bush. He was surprised that the West reacted so strongly to his invasion of Kuwait.
Ever since then we have had mostly women in the role of Sec. State, like some kind of cosmic comedy. To some extent it is setting up the woman at State for failure, even a brilliant one like Condi. (Very tempting to make a snide comment about Kerry but will reign in the impulse.)
We can use the position to make a point about women our priority, or we can make genuine diplomacy our priority -- not both when dealing with Muslims. We can show disdain for Muslim culture by sending women to deal with them -- or we can try to actually make some progress.
