Mirror Mirror On The Wall, How Badly Do I Want To Get Out Of Here Before This Place Falls Apart?

Is Condi Rice losing it, or is it just her ineptitude showing through? I think it’s the latter.

Up until recently, Rice’s preoccupation with appearance (see my previous character analysis) has saved her from seeming out of her league. After the p.r. beating she took during the 9/11 hearings (as well as the recent dust up from the neocons over the Chalabi attack), however, Rice seems to have completely dropped her guard.

This past week alone, Rice has provided two textbook examples of the histrionic gesture. First, in what the St. Petersburg Times defined as one of the most “revealing pre-emptive denials” in Washington history, she insisted that the members of the new Iraq government “are not American puppets.” Then, for an encore, she helped set the stage for the President’s key European trip with the sophmoric assertion that Bush would be remembered as a statesman equal to the likes of Roosevelt and Churchill.

If I had to guess, I would say Condi is spending more time counting the days till her term is up than she is thinking about the job at hand.