Condi brings a record of failure to the State Dept. (Center for American Progress) A seriously flawed national security advisor, considered by some one of the weakest ever in that role, her sole asset is her loyalty to Bush, “whose sentences she can finish.” (New York Times)

Rice, recall, was inattentive to terrorism czar Richard Clarke’s urgent warnings about the severity of the terrorist threat prior to 9-11, and she was one of the primary perpetrators of the misleading dysadministration spin — a.k.a. lies — justifying the Iraq invasion. Since then, she has been a prime facilitator of the scare-’em-to-death stranglehold by which the dysadministration has sucked in the voters, perpetuating the notion of an imminent terrorist threat. Another former security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, has roundly criticized her for her egregiously politicizing a previously credible advisory role. Also recall her smarmy and evasive testimony to the 9-11 commission after the dysadministration lost the battle to prevent her from testifying altogether.

Come to think of it, she is actually very good at her job, only it is not really that of a security adviser. She should much more properly be described as an insecurity adviser par excellence.

Bush’s new appointments have the flavor of circling the wagons, surrounding himself with his closest circle of advisors. I think the narrowing of viewpoints this will inevitably precipitate is dire news, as if there wasn’t enough already. Throughout the first administration, Bush and, perhaps more so, Cheney, were adept at filtering out concepts and evidence that did not fit preconceived notions and agendas. (It was this filtering out of what they did not want to hear at the top, rather than the faulty intelligence which is commonly blamed, that shaped the threat assessments leading to the invasion of Iraq.) Bush boasted that he makes his decisions by gut instinct instead of thinking. Now, the barriers to a completely thoughtless exercise of power are being swept away even more completely.