Tag Archives: Condoleezza Rice

political news

Condi Rice: Squishy liberal? Hardly

Can we add Condoleezza Rice to the ranks of those who are thinking aloud about how the Second Amendment applies to the real world of today, compared to when it was written?

Let’s start by dismissing the notion that the former secretary of state, national security adviser to President George W. Bush and all-round brainiac is some squishy liberal. She isn’t.

The Parkland, Fla., school slaughter has Rice thinking about the Second Amendment. According to The Hill: “I think it is time for us to have a conversation about what the right to bear arms means in the modern world,” Rice told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “I don’t understand why civilians need to have access to military weapons.”

“We wouldn’t, we wouldn’t say you can go out and buy a tank,” she continued. “So I do think we need to have that conversation.”

Could the authors of the Second Amendment in the 18th century envision a time when weapons such as the AR-15 that the Parkland shooter used would be available? I doubt it, folks.

So, let’s have that discussion. Shall we? Can we have it without going apoplectic?

Maybe someone as distinguished and admired as Condoleezza Rice can lead it.

national news

Grads get lecture from POTUS about ‘listening’

Condoleezza-Rice_

President Barack Obama has delivered some much-needed wisdom to recent university graduates about the need to keep their ears and their minds open to all points of view.

The president delivered a commencement address to Rutgers University graduates and lectured them about the “misguided” effort to prevent a former secretary of state from speaking to an earlier class of graduates.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/obama-chides-rutgers-students-pressuring-203403559.html

Condoleezza Rice was supposed to speak to Rutgers grads in 2014, but she was pressured to back out of her scheduled appearance because students and faculty members disagreed with her involvement in the George W. Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Obama said it was wrong to mount that kind of pressure against Rice.

He is correct to say so.

“I don’t think it’s a secret that I disagree with many of the policies of Dr. Rice and the previous administration. But the notion that this community or this country would be better served by not hearing a former secretary of state or not hearing what she had to say — I believe that’s misguided,” Obama said. “I don’t think that’s how democracy works best, when we’re not even willing to listen to each other.”

You go, Mr. President!

Universities should be places where all points of view are welcome. Does anyone really doubt that a former secretary of state has something valuable to say to students who are about to leave academia to make their way into the world?

This notion of academic snobbery has rankled me repeatedly over the years.

I’m gratified to hear the president of the United States tell these young graduates something they needed to hear, if they might not like hearing it.

national news, political news

Second thoughts on 'scum' comment

We’re all entitled to having second thoughts, aren’t we?

I put a tweet out there a few days ago in response to Sen. John McCain’s angry comment at protesters who were holding up signs while several former secretaries of state were testifying before McCain’s Senate Armed Services Committee.

He called them “low-life scum.” I said they were entitled to protest.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/02/01/mccain-im-still-outraged-by-kissinger-protesters-at-hearing/?tid=sm_tw

Well, McCain’s anger was justified in one important sense.

One of the former diplomats they were accosting in the hearing room was 91-year-old Henry Kissinger, who served Presidents Nixon and Ford and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating an end to the Vietnam War. Also testifying with Kissinger were Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice.

Yes, the demonstrators had a right to protest. They should have demonstrated at least a bit of decorum and kept their distance from Kissinger, Rice and Albright. Kissinger in particular was actually threatened physically by the demonstrators, who were carrying signs that declared Kissinger to be a “war criminal.”

McCain made no apologies for his outburst. In retrospect, I wouldn’t have apologized, either.

“Of course, I was outraged, and I’m still outraged. It’s one thing to stand up and protest. It’s another to physically threaten an individual,” Chairman McCain said.

You were right to be angry, Mr. Chairman.