Not recommended. I see the oops disavowals have begun. But just when I start crediting people who say Romney will do nothing for the ticket with an ounce of sense, someone else comes along and proposes someone, like Rice, who will do even less for it. I would trust Mitt Romney with the reins of government roughly five zillion times more than Condi Rice. This argument seems so easy to make that I can even concede that Rice is an okay person who has not ruined everything she's touched in Washington. True enough, major factions of the Bush government haven't made it easy for her. Then again life isn't easy, and certainly not in the Halls of Power.
As far as McCain should be concerned I see only one kind of attraction. She's even more catlike and aloof than Obama -- a slightly sharper dresser, especially if you enjoy The Matrix, and in the height of aristocratic style she plays classical piano with a technical focus and mechanical proficiency that wholly disqualifies her from a professional career. But as appealing as that sort of profile might be for any number of reasons, it's worse than useless to the Vice Presidency. Especially in the post-Cheney era, we need a person capable of adding value without completing the transformation of the office into the Co-Presidency. Frankly, key to preventing this from happening is as clean a break as possible with the sitting administration -- institutionally, if for no other reason. And so I return to Mitt.
Ramesh Ponnuru has the bottom line:
Terrific idea. McCain's problem in this election is obviously that he has too much distance from Bush's foreign policy.
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