re: #49 Killgore Trout

I still don’t blame Condi. The State Dept implements policies as directed by the President. How effectively those policies are implemented is the responsibility of the Secretary of State but the policies themselves come directly for the president. Bush was very keen on spreading democracy in the Middle East and whether or not Condi also thought it was a good idea is unknown. In this case she was doing her job.

I think she was hired for her expertise as an expert in Russian affairs. It turned out that Russia was mostly on the sidelines after 2001.