CONDI RICE CRITICIZES PUTIN BUT HER WORDS APPLY MORE TO GEORGE BUSH

As reported in The New York Times today by Thom Shanker and Steven Lee Myers, here is the most ridiculous and hypocritical statement from the mouth of Condoleeza Rice.

"Ms. Rice met with civic and human rights advocates at the American ambassador’s residence here and then, meeting with reporters, indirectly chided Mr. Putin for overseeing a steady erosion of the independent media, the courts and the legislative branch.

"“In any country, if you don’t have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development,” she said."

By the way, how did Condi Rice ever deserve to become Secretary of State? It is mystifying. She is way in above her head. Oh, yeah, I forgot, she is a friend of W's.

Now to her statement. Forget about Putin's power. Condi's statement rings more true when we consider the power of George W. Bush. For the first six years of Bush's presidency, there has been no "countervailing institutions." The Republicans controlled both House and Senate, and just rubber-stamped Bush's violations of the U.S. Constitution. Truly the excesses of George Bush were "problematic," as Condi says "for democratic development."

Bush has established torture as the way to interrogate prisoners, established Guantanamo to take prisoners from Afghanistan and Iraq and deposit them in no man's land half way around the world, encouraged practices such as went on in Abu Ghraib, spied on citizens without obtaining warrants, initiated an unjustified and illegal war in Iraq that has killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, politicized the U.S. Justice Department, and on and on.

George Bush is a disaster for American democracy.