MSNBC - Does Rice really know her role?

Howard Fineman v. The Rock

KNOW YOUR ROLE!

That's the famous taunt that pro wrestler The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) screams at opponents when they overstep their bounds.

It's a play on the old misogynistic attitude of a he-man telling the lowly woman that she should be barefoot and pregnant . . . she should "know her role" and not get such high falutin' ideas about things off-limits like reading, having friends, and making what SHE would prefer for dinner.

But The Rock can say it to anyone he wants because he's the ultimate bad-a** and can show contempt for anyone (or so the scenario goes).

Today, Howard Fineman, Newsweek’s chief political correspondent and an NBC News analyst, tells Dr. Condileeza Rice to "KNOW HER ROLE"; Apparently in his mind has overstepped her rightful place by becoming one of the most powerful women in the world with the ear of the President of the United States . . . and not doing it the way Mr. Fineman would have her do it.

At one point her says of Dr. Rice that she is "[a] self-proclaimed expert at understanding 'structural' change in large institutions . . . ."

How condescending can you get?

What are her credentials in this area? I don't know. Does he? He might want to make a note of her actual experience and thus prove that she does not have any in the concept of "change" in a large institution. Instead, like so many leading Libs nowadays, he simply makes the accusation and does nothing to back it up. (cf. Howard Dean to Diane Rehm, John Kerry on Foreign Leaders, Edward Kennedy on a War made up in Texas)

MSNBC - Does Rice really know her role?
Let's look at that non-biased portray of Dr. Rice in this article:

• "A self-proclaimed expert . . . ."
  
• "Rice wasn't aware — may still not be aware — . . . ."
  
• "The student of bureaucratic change didn't really attempt to foment any, at least not with the kind of urgency we know she needed to have." Gotta love hindsight, eh Libs?
  
• "And Rice's tone was perhaps too steely: The response to terrorism over the years had been "insufficient," she said. What a bland word when a soothing sense of regret was required. She was a bureaucrat explaining "structure" to a national audience (and a chamber full of family members) that yearned for blunt talk."
  
• "Rice . . . is just a cog in a machine."
  
• "The president was given the now-famous PDB of Aug. 6, 2001, which suggested not only that Osama bin Laden was "determined " to attack inside the United States, but that the FBI had picked up a pattern that suggested the possibility of hijackings here." According to testimony, that's incorrect. The PDB talked of PAST threats made in the PAST but not NOW . . . PAST. This was NOT a warning that "planes a acomin' . . . ."
  
• "Already on the defensive for his leadership in the post 9/11 world . . . ." Being attacked, yes. "On the defensive"? No.

Finally, we have this wonderful bit toward the end of the piece:

Remember the picture of the president in the classroom being told by Andy Card of the attack? The American people thought they were seeing a man suddenly thrust into a grave challenge no one could have anticipated. That won him enormous sympathy and patience from the voters. But what if he was literally on vacation — at the ranch in Crawford — when he should have been making sure that someone was ringing alarm bells throughout the bureaucracy?

So you mean Bush WASN'T "thrust into a grave challenge no one could have anticipated"? Then what exactly DID happen, Mr. Fineman?

What a weird conspiracy theory twist to an otherwise unexceptional piece of non-biased media.

Thank god we don't have any bias in the press.