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I see no redeemable value to the legacy of Condoleezza Rice.

As the former United States Secretary of State and former National Security Advisor in the Bush administration, Rice was part to one of the worst presidencies in modern-day history.  At the least, Rice is an African-American apologist, who remained ambivalent about racism and racial preferences.  And at the most, Rice is an international war criminal, whose incompetency as a foreign affairs expert was evinced in the fact that she couldn’t decipher several memos, which clearly stated “Bin Laden was determined to strike in the US.”

Yet despite all of her blundering in foreign policy and her participation in the country’s most incompetent regime, various news outlets want for us to forget about Condi, the war-mongerer, and focus on Condi, the likable, talented person.

Rice, who is making the rounds on various talking head programs to promote her memoir “Extraordinary, Ordinary People,” has been treated with soft mink-like kid gloves, from the likes of Jon Stewart to NPR, who feel oddly more comfortable with extolling her virtues than her misdeeds.

Condi, the over-achieving intellectual, who received her doctorates by the age of 26 and became an international war criminal by the age of fifty.  Condi, the concert pianist, who once tickled the ivories for the likes of soulful crooner Aretha Franklin, while scores of angry protestors called for her prosecution for treason and war crimes.  And Condi, the down-to-earth gentle hawk, who once went shoe shopping and watched a Broadway musical in New York as bodies were floating down the street in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

Call me bias (as many on this site have) but I find it utterly disgusting that NPR and the likes would try to portray Rice as a role model for women and African Americans alike, when in fact she is the opposite. In other words, just because someone is black, or a woman, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are a friend to the race, the gender nor the cause, you feel me?

Case in point, Rice was born in Birmingham, Alabama, as the only child of a Presbyterian minister and a music teacher. Throughout her childhood, Rice and her family experienced firsthand the injustices of Birmingham’s racial prejudice, which at the time was also ground zero for civil rights movement.

Like many black children during that era, Rice witnessed terrorism directed at black folks such as police brutality, bombings and lynchings. In fact, one of her friends was one of the four little girls who died in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

So by having direct knowledge of what such racial discrimination and terrorism could do to a community, what does Rice do?  She joins the political party, whose existence depends almost entirely upon racial prejudice and exploitation of racism for political purposes. Not saying that the Democrats are any better at dealing with race and racism but when you align yourself, and then become complacent, to the obvious race politics of that party, you pretty much solidify yourself as a lackey.

During her tenure as Secretary of State, Rice pioneered something called “Transformational Diplomacy,” a set of doctrines and policies, which sought to maintain security, fight poverty, and make democratic reforms,” not in the United States, but in countries abroad.  After the September 11th attacks, the doctrine core beliefs would help guide us into not one, but two brutal wars, which has left Iraq, in particular, a bloody, failed mess.

And as National Security Advisor, Rice, along with Cheney, would authorize water boarding for Al-Qaeda detainees, according to a newly released report of the Senate Intelligence Committee.  Makes you wonder what exactly did she learn from the Civil Rights era?

While watching and listening to her on the various news shows, Rice plays up the lessons supposedly taught to her by her parents.  According to Rice, her family preached that despite the racial terrorism, which was happening around them, she was to not view herself as a victim. And that complaining and blaming white racists was simply not tolerated.

This inability to deal with the realities of social injustice may explain why she has total amnesia to the tens of thousand dead or maimed as a direct result of her actions.   To paint Rice as some sort of warm, fuzzy and harmless Renaissance woman would be the equivalent of suggesting that Adolf Hitler shouldn’t totally be demonized in history because he was charismatic and a good community organizer.

And despite her personal achievements, nothing she has done before, during or since her time in the Bush administration has in any way negated the sociopathic and cold-blooded actions she committed voluntarily. Not only do I find nothing to admire about her life, but I think that she represents a tragic tale without redemption.

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