Baseless Speculation, or Considering What Is Fit To Print
I am, without a doubt, no fan of Condoleeza Rice. Her bizarre pronouncements on subjects ranging from foreign policy (her duties) and fundametalist Christianity (her personal life) disturb me. She makes me want to throw things when I see her, like Janus, earnestly defening the double-speak of this administration. I am, on the other hand, quite a fan of The New York Times, the gray lady, the last bastion of "liberal" reporting.
A story on the front page of NYTimes.com today about Ms. Rice seemed to go a little to far in liberally deciding what news is fit to print.
Dance of Diplomacy Is Grist for the Gossip Mill documents the chatter surrounding Ms. Rice's professional associations. Condoleeza, you see, is notoriously single. Some people, including me at times, have delighted in rumors of her pining for the President himself. But such indulgences do not befit a newspaper of such stature.
The particular subject that prompts today's article is the news that Canada's strapping young foreign minister, newly single after his MP-ladyfriend traded him in for the other party, might be of interest to our Secretary.
He has a tan and the build of someone who spends his time on the rugby field, not holed up reading G-8 communiqu?\xA9s. Sure, at 40 years old, he is younger than Ms. Rice, who is 51, but that did not stop gossips from engaging in baseless speculating.... O.K., there needs to be a disclaimer right here. Foreign ministers rarely have a lot of alone time together. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Ms. Rice and Mr. MacKay are linked by anything more than their shared status as singletons.
No it didn't stop the gossips and there is no evidence to warrant evening mentioning these rumors. The lack of foundation didn't stop this very article in fact, from chronicling it with all the saccharin relish of the Daily News.
So what about the juicy details? After twelve paragraphs of foreplay we get to the meat of the rumors: they had dinner and shared an airplane. Sure Javier Solana got a lift too but "he looks like, well, a diplomat."
Yeah, like, who would be interested in him.... what a dork? Right, Condi?
Whatever her quirks, Ms. Rice is the Secretary of State and while she lacks the expertise needed for such a position, being an expert on the Soviet Union and all, she still deserves the same basic human respect granted to other kooks like Donald Rumsfeld or the President. Yes I titter when Bush and Angela Merkel share an ackward moment but the story there is that the President is genuinly behaving innapropriately. Today's news chooses to focus not on anything that Rice has done apart from her job.
As a woman in a male dominated profession she deserves the basic dignity afforded the men in her position: a thorough analysis of the substance of her statements not rumor that she is trying to get in someone's pants.
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Who is this guy?
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