By Selwyn Duke
With the rumor that Condoleezza Rice is a
frontrunner to be Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential pick, she’s the talk of the
town. She’s so intelligent, so sophisticated,
so statesmanlike and so scholarly that she could make you wonder if Hillary
Clinton really ever was “the most intelligent woman in America
When assessing this, I’m reminded of how
the late Christopher Hitchens put Bill Clinton’s so-called intellectual prowess
in perspective. The 42nd
president has a long history of making statements, Hitchens pointed out, yet what
has he ever said that was profound or memorable? Of course, like Clinton
For instance, when defending the fool’s
errand of trying to put a square democratic peg in a round Islamic hole, Rice
once said,
“We should note that unlike in our Constitutional Convention, the Iraqis have
not made a compromise as bad as the one that made my ancestors three-fifths of
a man.” Now, let’s put aside the fact
that the Iraqis have incorporated Sharia into their constitution. Informed people understand the origin of the
three-fifths language. To wit: it was slave states that wanted blacks counted
as whole people because this would increase their representation in Congress
and hence their power. Northern states,
however, wanted to minimize slave-state power and thus didn’t want the slaves
counted at all. The result, as is
usually the case in democratic republics, was a compromise: the three-fifths
compromise.
The only question now is whether Rice
didn’t fully understand this—and she probably knows something about the origin
of the constitutional language since she called it a “compromise”—or if she was
just aiming for a cheap applause line (and a cheap shot at America). Regardless, was hers an intelligent comment?
It should also be noted that European
peoples might not have been the first to practice slavery, but they were the
first to eliminate it. Yet, to this day,
Muslims still practice slavery in places such as Africa . Thus, what is to be concluded when Rice
utters, as is her wont, divisive comments such as “when the Founding Fathers
said ‘We the people,’ they didn’t mean me”? Is it an intelligent thing to do?
Then try this Rice comment on for
size. She also
said when defending Iraq
policy that it is the kind of people who “once believed that blacks were unfit
for democracy” who say “that the people of the Middle East ,
perhaps because of their color or their creed or their culture or even perhaps
because of their religion, are somehow incapable of democracy.”
Now, we know it was Rice’s job under George
W. Bush to defend his administration’s policies, but the above simply was not
an intelligent defense. How can you
conflate an inborn physical characteristic such as skin color with creed,
culture and religion, which involve belief?
Does Rice not understand why John Adams stated, “Our Constitution was
made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of
any other”? If a people’s beliefs don’t
influence its compatibility with democracy, what does?
Following Rice’s logic out, we’d have to
say that a people imbued with Nazi or communist doctrine couldn’t be unfit for
democracy, either, as such things are simply “creeds.” Translated, her comment means that beliefs simply
don’t matter. Of course, I don’t think
this actually is her belief; she surely just didn’t think things through. But is it intelligent to make public
pronouncements on matters of import without thinking things through?
Add to this the fact that Rice described
herself as “mildly pro-choice,” wishes the U.S. would have signed on to the
global-warming scam treaty the Kyoto Protocol, and was so enthusiastic about
Barack Obama’s 2008 win that it indicated she might have voted for him, and
what kind of profile emerges? She simply
is not a conservative—except maybe in the European sense of the term. And, we have to ask, is this an intelligent
political ideology?
If you think me harsh, note that I spoke
only of Condoleezza Rice’s remarks and positions; I didn’t say she was unintelligent. I’m sure she is so in the sense that my
family doctor, a couple of relatives and some other people I’ve known are
intelligent. I’m sure she plays the
piano beautifully and I know she excelled at academics, but this doesn’t qualify
one for high office. In fact, she
reminds me of someone. You know the
type: he has his head in books all day, gets straight A’s, spends many hours a
week cloistered practicing an instrument, but has no common sense. To paraphrase Mark Twain, she seems like the
kind of person who has let her schooling interfere with her education.
Given Rice’s positions, one may wonder why
she’s as popular as she is (63 percent of respondents in a Drudge poll want her
as Romney’s pick). Well, the answer
reminds me of something. Rice once said
that what attracted her to George W. Bush was that he spoke of the “soft
bigotry of low expectations,” something she understands well. Ironically, though, this is precisely the
phenomenon attracting many conservatives to Rice. After all, would a white man with her history
and political positions draw so much conservative support? Would we even be talking about him?
Fact: we wouldn’t even know about him.
Why?
Because President Bush never would have chosen Rice to be secretary of
state were it not for her race and sex.
The reality is that, just like Obama, she was an affirmative-action
selection.
Of course, this is where some may opine
that, with beating Obama being the priority, this is precisely what we
need. I’ll see your epidermal melanin
content and raise you an X chromosome.
But don’t bank on this carrying the day, as it’s hardly a given that
Rice will sweeten the dish for voters. After
all, staunch traditionalists won’t like her for the reasons I’ve outlined here,
devoutly Democrat blacks will dismiss her as an Aunt Thomasina, and the
swinging-to-and-fro middle may not like her ties to still unpopular Bush. So not only is Rice disastrous ideologically,
she’s at best risky politically.
So keep searching the menu. The Romney has already been ordered, paid for
and cooked up, but hold the Rice. We
need something that will stick to our ribs.
