by James Glaser
January 20, 2005

I listened to the Senate confirmation hearings on Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State and came away with a few worries. First off, there is the woman's voice. Being that Secretary of State is a Diplomatic Post, you have to be able to communicate and every man in the world, who hears Condi Rice's voice, if they understand English or not, will know that this woman has a bitchy sound to her voice.

I don't care what anyone thinks about this observation. Ms. Rice does not have the voice of a diplomat. No one would ever use the word, pleasant, to describe her voice. Any government leader who has a discussion with this woman is going to think about the last time his wife or mother really got down on him. The woman has this high pitch that sounds like she is whining. Women leaders are going to feel the same way, Rice has a very demeaning tone to her voice when she speaks.

Another thing that got to me is that Republican and Democrat Senators alike laid out instances where she lied to the American people. Oh, the Senators never came right out and said she lied, Senators don't talk straight like that. They said there were "inconsistencies in her testimony" to the American people in the start-up to the Iraqi war. You and I would have looked at the facts they laid out, and said that she lied like a rug.

Let's face it, George Bush is going to have a hard time in his second term telling any one anything and having them believe it. Truth has not been George's strong suit and having Condoleezza Rice as our spokesperson for the country is not going to raise our believability level.

Secretary of State, Colin Powell was a Statesman, he had the respect of most world leaders, and he has a diplomat's voice. You might say that his voice had a "ring of truth" to it. The man sounded believable. World leaders know what Condoleezza Rice's job was in the first term of George Bush's Presidency. They will remember her talking about "mushroom shaped clouds" over American cities and her talk about aluminum tubes being used for making atomic weapons. They will know that Rice scammed the American people with fearful talk to get us into a war in Iraq and they will wonder if she is doing the same to them.