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

To: LindyBill who wrote (101892)	6/21/2003 9:06:08 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

State has been a "rogue" operation for centuries. FDR had to bypass them all the times. State has had conflicts, at times, with many administrations. They haven’t always been wrong. We pay people to develop expertise, train them to acquire information, and put them into the field. It might not make sense to defer to their opinions blindly, but it certainly doesn’t make sense to ignore their opinions because they aren’t telling us what we want to hear. It seems to me that the only way to handle those people is to have them call it as they see it. We may decide not to listen – which will not always be wise – but if we reduce them to sycophantic parroting of whatever line is fashionable in DC, we do ourselves no service. Gingrich’s objection to State is, at root, that they disagree with him. That doesn’t bother me at all. I like having opposing viewpoints bouncing around, makes it easier for the rest of us to decide what we think. That goes, at least, for those of us who still prefer to decide what we think, instead of waiting for some uber-ideologue to tell us.