YOU THOUGHT HANNITY WAS THE STUPIDEST MAN IN TV? GLENN BECK THINKS CONDOLEEZA RICE SHOULD RUN FOR PRESIDENT

As some of you know I'm an Adjunct Professor at McGill. It's so cold in Montreal that I don't go up as often as I ought too. I much prefer to lecture at academically inferior, by considerably warmer, schools like USC and Stanford. Oh, let me take that back, or half of it. Stanford isn't academically inferior any longer. Since being separated from a well-known but highly incompetent fraud-- albeit one with some social graces and some skill at political infighting-- Stanford has resumed it's place as a leading light in the academic world. But for a few years there... oy; it has really started fraying around the edges.


A little disclaimer: I never met Condoleeza Rice at Stanford. Many of my colleagues had. I've yet to find a single one who thought she had anything on the ball or who would even describe her as bright. "Hack" is the word one hears most frequently. And "decent enough piano player for a cocktail party kind of thing."

And why is she the Secretary of State? Of the United States of America? Bush the First needed a tutor for his learning-disabled, borderline retarded, ADD son, the one they wanted to make George the Second. But Little George couldn't point out Russia or France or Australia on a map and his knowledge of history never got past the anecdotal level of who chopped down cherry trees. Condoleeza got the job. No off-putting pointy headed intellectual she. She didn't look down her nose at the moron she was supposed to teach junior high school level political geography. In fact she was impressed with, even worshipful towards, her new charge.

When Colin Powell veered a little too independent in the mind department and started feeling guilt pangs about all the lies and deceit... well, none of that ever crossed into Condoleeza's consciousness. You may have gathered, from what I said above, that the Stanford faculty members-- at least the ones I know-- were not mightily impressed with her. There is a bi-partisan consensus in the foreign affairs establishment that she is the least qualified Secretary of State in anyone's memory. Republican foreign policy experts uniformly describe her as utterly incompetent and a complete waste of time and energy. Like her boss, she's a joke.


So why would it surprise anyone that she's the first Secretary of State in anyone's memory-- from either political party-- to hit the campaign trail? According to today's Washington Post she isn't working out little wrinkles with Iran, North Korea, Pakistan or China; she's out campaigning like a mutha. "Two weeks before crucial midterm elections that could tip the balance of power in Congress, Rice has been on a media blitz that appears aimed mainly at conservative media outlets, particularly radio talk shows. Secretary of state is traditionally a nonpartisan position, and Rice's media itinerary differs sharply from the practice of her predecessors during election campaigns, according to State Department records. Rice has given nine interviews on radio, starting with three appearances on Oct. 24 during 'Radio Day,' when 42 radio hosts, most of them conservatives, were invited to the White House to spread the administration's message to President Bush's political base."

Forget Ahmadinejad or King Abdullah. Condi's chewin' the fat with far right blowhards and propaganda operators like Glenn Beck, Larry Kudlow, Bill Bennett, Laura Ingraham and Bill Cunningham. Although many of these hate-talk radio slimeballs have about as much discernment as a frog or, better yet, a lily pad a frog just crapped on, all the shows start out with them praising her to the skies, as though she weren't the least qualified Secretary of State in modern times.

Cincinnati-based Cunningham, widely considered to be one of the least intelligent men ever allowed to talk into a live microphone, urged her to run for president (of the United States). "As an American living in the heartland . . . which beats throughout America, I'm proud to have you as secretary of state," he enthused, trying his best to make some sense. Never one to let anyone get away with coming off stupider than himself, Glenn Beck called her-- with not the slightest trace of irony-- "one of the most remarkable people of our age." (Maybe they were born on the same star-cursed day.)


"Generally, the questions on even the conservative shows were devoted to foreign policy, allowing Rice to present a strong defense of the 'really visionary' Bush and his policies, such as his 'very skillful diplomacy' on the North Korean nuclear crisis. But sometimes the questioning veered toward the partisan, forcing Rice to do a quick tap dance away from the questioner's opinions. 'The key to me is that this president has a program for the war on terror and it's a program that is going to win, and he needs the support of everyone for that program,' she blabbled on. 'I frankly haven't heard an alternative posed for how we fight the war on terror except on the offense.' Now that is really visionary... and skillful.

Her flacks say her media blitz coming a few days before the election is just a coinkedink. "As national security adviser during Bush's first term, Rice drew fire for giving speeches around the country in crucial battleground states shortly before the 2004 election, a practice none of her predecessors had done. The White House at the time noted that Bush had directed the secretaries of state and defense to avoid getting enmeshed in the presidential campaign. But the White House defended Rice's speeches, saying 'part of the job today of national security adviser is to discuss our nation's national security policy.' During her confirmation hearings for the current job, Rice was asked in written questions about her speeches during the 2004 presidential campaign and was asked to confirm she would abstain from activity that might be construed as partisan. 'If confirmed as secretary of state, I intend to continue the tradition in that position of not actively participating in public campaign or political events,' Rice wrote back to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As with her entire career, she was lying her ass off.

Rice is a studied and able liar. When C.I.A. Director George Tenet watched her lying up a storm at the 9/11 hearings-- under oath, no less-- he referred to her as "very cleaver." You learn that kind of cleverness in the battle for upward academic mobility. Of course in universities where you lie, people don't usually die, and certainly not in the thousands.


When Richard Clarke first informed the country that Bush's National Security Advisor was an utter incompetent at everything except for what she was first hired to do-- be a kind of grandiose version of a nanny for retardo-boy-- those outside of government were surprised, even shocked. Those inside weren't.

"George Tenet and I tried very hard to create a sense of urgency by seeing to it that intelligence reports on the al Qaeda threat were frequently given to the president and other high level officials," Clarke testified. "And there was a process under way to address al Qaeda. But, although I continued to say it was an urgent problem, I don't think it was ever treated that way." Clarke was the counter terrorism chief. Clarke says that in the spring of 2001 Condi didn't know the term "al Qaeda" and that, for whatever reason, she kept all of the most crucial analyses away from Bush.

Rice's NSC was a complete wreck and Colin Powell warned Bush that it was dysfunctional and a real danger. Bush hated him for saying it. A faith-based presidency, where instinct and gut reaction is all that matters and reality-bound analysis just gets in the way of action, Rice's only role was to guard the doors and make sure no reality crept in.

Bush thought being president would be easy. Americans bought the line about him being surrounded by brilliant minds and seasoned pros. And now our country is a mess and we're on the verge of losing our democracy.