Rummy X Condi

A colunista do New York Times, Maureen Dowd, comemora a derrota do Rummy de maneira divertida.

Women who are discouraged at the ascension of Conan the Barbarian in Cal-ee-fornia can take heart. In this delicious gender-bender, Condoleezza Rice triumphs as the macho infighter, driving Rummy into a diva-like meltdown.

The trigger was Monday's coverage of the Iraq Stabilization Group (a.k.a. Fat Chance Group); the group is a desperate bid to get a grip on Baghdad before the campaign starts by transferring power for postwar Iraq from the Pentagon to the national security adviser's office inside the White House.

Condi used a trick she learned from Rummy: pre-emption. She outflanked the famous Washington infighter by talking about the new alignment to The New York Times before he had a chance to object.

Um dos editoriais New York Times tb comenta a disputa pelo poder entre o chefe do pentágono e a conselheira especial do baby Bush.

As entertaining as all this is to fans of Washington psychodramas, there are important decisions to be made about postwar Iraq and not a lot of reassurance so far that they are being made correctly. If Ms. Rice's memo signals a real attempt to exercise political control over the violence and instability in Iraq, that would be welcome. But so far, the grandly named Iraq Stabilization Group seems more like an attempt to substitute title-building for nation-building — reminiscent of this administration's announcement that it was dealing with unemployment by creating a new assistant secretary post at the Labor Department.

O Asia Times tb mostra as mudanças no discurso do Rumsfeld nos últimos tempos.

Now Rumsfeld is portraying himself as a "committed Atlanticist". Is "Mr Unilateralism" having a real change of heart ? Alternatively, is he really growing up in his job (he is serving as US Secretary of Defense for the second time) and coming to realize that multilateralism - which served the US so well during the Cold War years - is still the right way to pursue its interest in the post-Iraq years? Or, is it merely a tactical maneuvering on his part?

O Wolfowitz (veja notas) já saiu logo depois da queda da estátua do Saddam... Rummy será o próximo? Vi ao vivo o discurso do baby Bush de hj que já faz parte da nova estratégia de comunicação da Casa Branca. Não sei se vai convencer alguém de que as coisas andam bem no Iraque. Será que o próximo passo do baby Bush é usar o Rummy como bode espiatório? Hj morreram 8 iraquianos em um atentado a uma delegacia e tb mataram um diplomata espanhol...