DeLong now quotes Robert Novak shedding a little more light on the split:
- Members of the Senate intelligence committee, Republicans and Democrats alike, were alarmed last week that John Negroponte was leaving as director of national intelligence after less than two years to become deputy secretary of state. By way of explanation, he informed one Republican senator that he did not want to make the switch but that the White House had prevailed on him to do so.... [T]o pull him out just as his on-the-job training was completed reflects a panicky desire to fill the deputy secretary post, which had been unfilled for an unprecedented six months. Five other key State Department positions are either vacant or are soon to be vacant.
Republicans in Congress who do not want to be quoted tell me that the State Department under Condoleezza Rice is a mess.... Rice has failed to manage.... Rice's previous government duties had been as an analyst and staffer rather than as a manager.... The deputy's post went to Robert Zoellick, one of the most talented national security administrators of the past generation who during Bush's first term was U.S. trade representative.... Zoellick took a bullet for the team, dropping down a step to No. 2 at State....
Estranged from Zoellick, Rice relied on Burns and State Department Counselor Philip Zelikow.... Zelikow was near the top of the arrogance scale in a building where arrogance is the norm.... Zoellick... had enough after 18 months.... That began a furtive, sporadic search for a deputy. Several prospects (including Marine Gen. James Jones, who just retired as NATO's supreme allied commander) said no.... Negroponte... was implored by fellow Foreign Service officers to bring order out of chaos...
As DeLong says, someone has it in for Rice, to be giving this stuff to Novak. Payback for her selling out the Iraq Study Group? Be that as it may, I still don't understand the split between Rice and Zelikow.
eta: Here's a link to Novak's piece:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...002021_pf.html
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