Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Officials said the Bush administration, after initial hesitation, has determined that the Israeli military campaign against Hizbullah was vital in the effort to reduce the threat from Iran and Syria in the Middle East. They said the administration would not pressure Israel to agree to an immediate ceasefire. Officials said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice initially sought to halt Israel's massive retaliation against Hizbullah, which abducted two Israeli soldiers on July 12. They said Ms. Rice, in twice-a-day phone calls, pressed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to significantly reduce the operation to prevent casualties and maintain the Lebanese...

She wouldn't bring any political base to the ticket, since she doesn't have one. She wouldn't bring any regional advantage, since McCain is almost certain to beat either Democrat in Rice's native state of Alabama, and almost certain to lose to either Democrat in Rice's adopted state of California. And while McCain has tied his candidacy to the Iraq occupation, he maintains some distance from the Bush administration by charging that until recently the war was woefully mismanaged. Rice, as national security adviser in Bush's first term, was one of the mismanagers. She would, however, provide three things that McCain...

Cedric the entertainer helps us understand the two sides of Condelizza Rice. This hilarious video is taken at the Annual Whitehouse Correspondents Diner. (Hat tip to thepoliticalteen.net) CLICK HERE for more. As for me.... Leeza would get my vote! Craig DeLuz Visit The Home of Uncommon Sense... www.craigdeluz.com

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice says that disengagement from Gush Katif and northern Shomron is fine, but only as a first step towards a full-fledged PLO state. Rice met with Prime Minister Sharon's top aide Dov Weisglass in Washington on Monday. She explained to him the U.S. position that the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza is acceptable only as a prelude to the full Road Map plan proposed by President Bush. The Road Map plan calls for a "viable" - i.e., territorially-contiguous - Arab state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Rice, as well, emphasized this point to Weisglass. This means...

With the recent piling on of Secretary of State by REPUBLICANS expect the following move Senate Republicans will attempt to force President Bush to get Sec. Rumsfeld to resign by threatening to block Dr. Condi Rice for Sec of State. Bet on it and get prepared to fight. Focus on McCain (needs ego stroked), Collins, Lott (his wittle ego is bwoosed), Coleman ( Prez Bush "supported Annan")

Condoleezza Rice, the most senior black woman in the Bush administration, has levelled a charge of racism against critics of the US drive to bring Western freedoms to the Middle East. In an unusually personal speech, Miss Rice, the national security adviser to President George W Bush, said the push to bring democracy and free markets to the Middle East was "the moral mission of our time", to be compared with the civil rights movement that ended racial segregation in America. Miss Rice rarely plays on her upbringing in Birmingham, Alabama - a hotbed of racial strife in the Sixties,...

I still feel closely to Colin Powell. I'd still like to reach for him. He's not the first person in office who has eluded us or presented an opportunity to do some good that we thought we could never have. Bobby Kennedy, was when he first came into office, somebody that we looked at with enormous anguish and suspicion because we didn't feel that he understood the struggles of black people in this country. And our task was to reach to him and to provoke him and to push him until he became a human being who was awakened...