How'd Condi Get a Ph.D.?

[SoDesuKa]

The senators of the Foreign Relations Committee fell all over themselves praising Doctor Rice for her "brilliance." But I thought her responses were trite and somewhat shopworn. I know that in her career she's managed to snag a Ph.D., but she doesn't come across as scholarly.

She reminds me of George Will, who never uses a small word when a big one will do. Rice frequently employed rhetorical flourishes when she could have said the same things fairly simply. At first it was a distraction; then it became annoying.

I haven't read Rice's dissertation but on the basis of her performance before the Senate, I suspect it's neither original nor signficant. Otherwise, in the intervening years, where did her sophistication go? Did she simply forget what she learned?