Failing to Grasp the Concept - Condi Rice

In December of 2000, Bush 43 nominated Condi Rice to be the National Security Advisor. Of course, she was a family friend and Bush loyalist. However, she also served in Bush 41's administration as special advisor on Soviet Affairs.

So what did The Economist have to say about her "special advice?" Here is what they wrote in December of 2000:

Condi "deserves blame for a comparable failure: America’s early underestimation of Boris Yeltsin. During Mr Yeltsin’s first trip to the United States in 1989, she overruled the advice of the American embassy in Moscow on how to treat him. Instead of being ushered in to see the president through the front door of the White House, the Russian leader merely saw Mr Bush senior during a stop-by visit at the National Security Council.

This slight culminated in a more fundamental failure: while America was still hoping that Mr Gorbachev could reform the Soviet system, Russia and the rest were declaring independence. Any fool could see the Soviet Union was collapsing. It took the real brainboxes of the Bush White House to get on the wrong side of history."

That's right folks. Any fool. Any fool, that is, except Condi Rice, the special advisor on Soviet Affairs.