does jim hoagland smoke dope?

I have to ask that question after reading Hoagland's column today about how Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice can succeed, referring to the messes in the Middle East (Lebanon and oh yes, let us not forget Mr. Bush's War in Iraq) and North Korea.

What really made me cough up my coffee was this para:

Rice has given U.S. Foreign Service professionals the space to construct new containment strategies for Iran (Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns) and North Korea (Assistant Secretary Christopher Hill), and those strategies have produced important U.N. Security Council resolutions and a communique by the Group of Eight supporting U.S. policy goals. "There has been a strategic click in the minds of others," says one U.S. official. "We must sustain and deepen it."

Oh come on Jim, surely you don't expect us to believe this crap? Everybody knows that political appointees are the ones making policy; Burns and Hill and the other Foreign Service professionals are just carrying out orders. Sure, Burns and Hill make proposals but in the end, if Condi doesn't okay them, the proposals don't fly.

And even if Rice DOES agree, everybody knows that the Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal (including our Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, who Rice farmed out to New York because she didn't trust him) and their neocon allies are willing and able to sabotage and reverse policies they don't like anyway.

Why do you think that we aren't talking to Iran, Syria, and North Korea? Don't you think if the "Foreign Service professionals" really WERE designing policy that we would bit the bullet and have talks, no matter how difficult, with those governments? Instead, we are just passing UN resolutions and G8 communiques and this passes for a policy??? That'll show 'em.

Oooh, and it made a "strategic click" go off in the minds of somebody. Whatever the hell THAT means.

Jim, consider filling that pipe after you finish your column, not before.