Rice has shown "brilliance" in only one sense of the word. She's shown that she's a brilliant student. Many brilliant students can't think their way out of a paper bag. Many of them are not inventive, are not creative and are best suited to stay in academics where disciple personalities abound.
If Jesus and the 12 disciples were all in a classroom, who do you think would get the A's" Here's a hint, it would most often be the ones telling the professor what the professor told them, not the one telling the professor that he was only half right.
I went to post graduate school with many people who had straight A's, were considered brilliant, got straight A's in graduate school and who were only just "intelligent" enough to repeat back what someone had taught them at the right time. The ability to think and the ability to excel at learning are not always, and maybe not often, tied together. I've seen Condoleezza Rice's all of my life in my profession. They normally know much and don't use it well at all.
I was recently involved in a School Board that fired a "brilliant" Condoleezza Rice clone from her job as a school superintendent. She was a nice lady, was immensely qualified on paper, said all the right things, understood all the latest educational material and couldn't get anything done without screwing it up. By the way, she had been an adequate assistant superintendent where all she did was follow someone else's lead.
Super achievers that excel at concert piano, figure skating and in school are not necessarily the ones that will lead you in situations that require leadership, out of the box thinking, creativity and risk taking and evaluating abilities. Most people look at the paper record of such people and are impressed, I've met too many of them in action and seen their deficits. The best criteria for evaluation is how well they've done in their last job and Rice did so poorly that if it wasn't for the "she's got my back" litmus test or stupidity of Bush, she'd be out of a job. Ed |
