Her suprise in this incidence is as disengenuous as was her surprise that Hamas was going to win the Palestinian elections - that were being pressed into her timetable (inspite of warnings from Israel and Abbas that Hamas would win unless Abbas had more time).
I am truly convinced that Condoleezza Rice is not running the State Department, at all. It is running her and the permanent bureacracy at foggy bottom and her Deputy Undersecretary for Political Affairs (Nicholas Burns) are calling the shots; not her; she is a public figurehead and no more. And who is Nichlas Burns - he's the former chief foreign policy advisor to the 2004 Presidential Campaign of John Kerry.
Why isn't she calling the shots, or at least firing a bunch of people?