The NYT has a profile on Secretary of State Rice with some discussion of what she may do once she leaves office: As Her Star Wanes, Rice Tries to Reshape Legacy.
I was especially struck by the following:
Ms. Rice is rarely, if ever, self-reflective. But in an interview with The New York Times this month, she acknowledged, ever so obliquely, that her first four years working for the Bush administration were not her best.
“I don’t know; if that’s the assessment, you know, I’ll accept people’s assessment,” she said, her demeanor resigned. “The national security adviser is a great job, because you’re very close to the president; you’re working with him, but it’s also a very difficult job because everything is by remote control. You do not own any of the assets.”
[...]
In fact, her friends say that she rarely questions whether she is right or wrong, instead choosing to believe in a particular truth with absolute certainty until she doesn’t believe it anymore, at which point she moves on. “Now you’ve got me trying to psycho-analyze myself,” she complained.
On the one hand, it is a bit much to expect too much public self-reflection by a high level official during an interview with a newspaper. On the other, it is also a necessity for high level officials to be able to deal with at least some of their mistakes in public or, at a minimum, be able to demonstrate to the public that they are constantly thinking about how to learn from their time in office as they move forward.
President Bush has been singularly bad at this type of behavior and Karl Rove similarly has demonstrated an unwillingness to do anything other than assert the rightness of his actions. Further, thinking back, Donald Rumsfeld was hardly one who seemed anything other than certain about his choices as well. Dr. Rice, whose academic background ought to have inculcated a tad more self-criticism, appears to fit that mold as well.
Certainly persons who are able to aspire to the highest levels of government are going to be self-confident and almost certainly somewhat egotistical and arrogant. On the other hand, truly great leaders need the ability to self-evaluate and to reassess situations as they go, rather than simply picking a course of action and sticking to it no matter what. As one watches and listens to the Bush administration, and as one thinks back over the course of its time in office, there has been a clear lack of this quality.
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