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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (14106)	12/18/2001 10:53:01 PM
From: tekboy	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Insiders Rumsfeld--smart, honest, crotchety, learning on the job. botched the initial attempt at defense reform miserably. has been a much better secretary of war than secretary of defense. his indifference to pc platitudes can be a virtue (helped him fight the war well) but can also be a vice (leads him to place excessive confidence in missile defense). will be interesting to watch. Wolfowitz--very smart, serious guy who is the leader of the neocon camp in the administration for a reason. Passionate. useful to have on board for backbone stiffening and input, but dangerous if given power. Bolton--devoted to a passionate belief in the virtues of unilateralism. shouldn't be in the job he's in. Rice--smart, savvy inside player. hard to get a fix on her politics. keeping her cards very close, and trying to play the inside game. Cheney--very smart, serious guy. Also a hardline right-winger. But in the pinch can probably be counted on not to do much that's really stupid. Key player in the administration. Libby--key Cheney staffer. smart neocon. Bush--something of an unknown, still. Apparently has good instincts, but doesn't know much. seems to be learning (China incident, the war). could grow. Powell--smart, serious, generally wise but a bit too cautious. Armitage--Powell's no. 2. smart, serious. neocon tendencies, but Powell's buddy. hard to know what he's saying inside. Haass--head of State policy planning. provider of intellectual framework for State; important antineocon player. smart, serious, excellent common sense. in an ideal world, would be in Rice's job. Perle--"prince of darkness" label justified. smart but wacky. doesn't deserve his influence. dangerous. Outsiders Gaffney--lightweight. combination of defense industry bagman and ideological hatchetman. ignore. Kristol--smart, passionate, not really a foreign or defense policy expert. Kagan--smarter, more honest, more serious part of Kristol-Kagan team. Always worth a listen or a read, but generally too hardline and by-the-book neocon for my taste. Cohen--one of the country's top military experts. in an ideal world, would be in Wolfowitz's job, or Rumsfeld's. Someone should post his WSJ Iraq piece from today. anybody else? tb@whatdoyouthinkofthebook?.com

To: JohnM who wrote (14106)	1/2/2002 5:16:06 PM
From: tekboy	Respond to of 281500

how about lining up the players in terms of your categories... [including] the folk to take seriously, the ideological but serious...[etc.] there's a profile in the Washington Post today of the kind of second-tier player who is known to professionals but not the public. His name is Dov Zakheim, and he's the Pentagon's Comptroller. He's quite hardline but smart, sane, and well-intentioned. Although he's certainly got the economic and management skills to do the job he's in, I would have preferred to see him in the somewhat higher-ranking and more influential job of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, which was given instead to Douglas Feith--somebody who's also smart and hardline, but more rigidly ideological and less intellectually creative. Just an example of the kind of insider gossip that rarely makes it out in public... washingtonpost.com tb@reliablesource.com