Condi's first day on the job....
Today was Condolezza Rice's first day on the job as our new Secretary of State. I found some excerpts from an address she gave her staff at the State Department. (I found them on Rush Limbaugh's website. I found no more than a mention of the address anywhere else). Here are the excerpts:
"I'm going to look and the president is going to look, to this department to lead that effort, and not just to implement policy, but we're going to need ideas, intellectual capital. I need your ideas. My door will be open. Please, understand that this is a time when history is calling us, and I just look forward to working with each and every one of you toward that end. The president has laid out a bold agenda, and he expects a lot of us. I want you to know, too, that I'm going to be committed to you, the men and women of the Foreign Service, the civil service, and our Foreign Service nationals abroad, and you in turn will be committed, and we in turn will be committed to carrying out that bold agenda."
"I got to participate in Germany unification and the liberation of eastern Europe and the peaceful talks with the Soviet Union, but you know, I realize that I was just harvesting good decisions that had been made in 1946 and 1947 and 1948. A lot of those decisions spurred by good work done by this building, the men and women of the state department. And those were days when it must have seemed that freedom's march was not assured. You think about it, in 1947 civil wars in Greece and Turkey, and in 1948 the permanent division of Germany thanks to the Berlin crisis and in 1949 the Soviet Union explodes a nuclear weapon five years ahead of schedule and the Chinese communists win. It must not have looked like freedom's march was assured. But they somehow pulled themselves together, people like Truman and Atchison and Marshall and, of course, on Capitol Hill, Senator Vandenberg, and they created a policy and a set of institutions that gave us a lasting peace. While no one might have been able at that time to imagine a Democratic Germany or a Democratic Japan, when President Bush now sits across from chancellor Schroeder or from Prime Minister Koizumi he sits across not just from a friend but a Democratic friend."
"I know that there are those who wonder whether democracy can take hold in the rocky soil of the West Bank or in Iraq or in Afghanistan. I believe that we as Americans who know how hard the path to democracy is, have to believe that it can, and we have to make it so that we work with those who want to achieve those aspirations so that one day a future president is sitting across from the Democratic president or prime minister of many a Middle Eastern country, of many a country that has not yet known democracy. That's our charge; that's our calling."
I think that Ms. Rice will be a wonderful assest as Secretary of State.
Rush made some observations and some predictions during his monologue today, some of which I tend to agree with. You can read them here.
"I'm going to look and the president is going to look, to this department to lead that effort, and not just to implement policy, but we're going to need ideas, intellectual capital. I need your ideas. My door will be open. Please, understand that this is a time when history is calling us, and I just look forward to working with each and every one of you toward that end. The president has laid out a bold agenda, and he expects a lot of us. I want you to know, too, that I'm going to be committed to you, the men and women of the Foreign Service, the civil service, and our Foreign Service nationals abroad, and you in turn will be committed, and we in turn will be committed to carrying out that bold agenda."
"I got to participate in Germany unification and the liberation of eastern Europe and the peaceful talks with the Soviet Union, but you know, I realize that I was just harvesting good decisions that had been made in 1946 and 1947 and 1948. A lot of those decisions spurred by good work done by this building, the men and women of the state department. And those were days when it must have seemed that freedom's march was not assured. You think about it, in 1947 civil wars in Greece and Turkey, and in 1948 the permanent division of Germany thanks to the Berlin crisis and in 1949 the Soviet Union explodes a nuclear weapon five years ahead of schedule and the Chinese communists win. It must not have looked like freedom's march was assured. But they somehow pulled themselves together, people like Truman and Atchison and Marshall and, of course, on Capitol Hill, Senator Vandenberg, and they created a policy and a set of institutions that gave us a lasting peace. While no one might have been able at that time to imagine a Democratic Germany or a Democratic Japan, when President Bush now sits across from chancellor Schroeder or from Prime Minister Koizumi he sits across not just from a friend but a Democratic friend."
"I know that there are those who wonder whether democracy can take hold in the rocky soil of the West Bank or in Iraq or in Afghanistan. I believe that we as Americans who know how hard the path to democracy is, have to believe that it can, and we have to make it so that we work with those who want to achieve those aspirations so that one day a future president is sitting across from the Democratic president or prime minister of many a Middle Eastern country, of many a country that has not yet known democracy. That's our charge; that's our calling."
I think that Ms. Rice will be a wonderful assest as Secretary of State.
Rush made some observations and some predictions during his monologue today, some of which I tend to agree with. You can read them here.
posted by Jamie at 1/27/2005 08:08:00 PM
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