Wilkerson said Rice, as national security adviser during Bush's first term, was
``extremely weak.'' Rather than ensure a broad airing of views within the White
House, ``she made a decision that she would side with the president to build her
intimacy with the president.'' She did not play the role of ``the balancer''
or ``the person who would make sure that every dissent got to the president that
made sense,'' Wilkerson said.

The administration's performance during its first four years would have
been even worse without Powell's damage control. At least once a week, it
seemed, Powell trooped over to the Oval Office and cleaned all the dog poop off
the carpet. He held a youthful, inexperienced president's hand. He told him
everything would be all right because he, the secretary of State, would fix it.
And he did — everything from a serious crisis with China when a U.S.
reconnaissance aircraft was struck by a Chinese F-8 fighter jet in April 2001,
to the secretary's constant reassurances to European leaders following the
bitter breach in relations over the Iraq war. It wasn't enough, of course, but
it helped.

Today, we have a president whose approval rating is 38% and a vice
president who speaks only to Rush Limbaugh and assembled military forces. We
have a secretary of Defense presiding over the death-by-a-thousand-cuts of our
overstretched armed forces (no surprise to ignored dissenters such as former
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki or former Army Secretary Thomas White).

It's a disaster. Given the choice, I'd choose a frustrating bureaucracy
over an efficient cabal every time.