The Diplomad has a post from a retired foreign service officer on the occasion of Gen. Powell’s announcement that he will be leaving State that simply should not be missed:
“I was in the Department the day that Powell arrived. He was a breath of fresh air after a string of very bad Secretaries of State, starting with Jim Baker, continuing with the comatose Warren Christopher, and then the vile Madeleine Albright. The State Department was in disarray, morale was at rock bottom, literally hundreds of officers had quit or taken early retirement. Our Embassies in many countries were barely functional, and very exposed to terrorist attack. Department employees were constantly being lectured on the need “to do more with less” but no reform of the bureaucracy was undertaken to make it leaner and more efficient; everything was pretty much left as it was, but just given less money — except of course for Albright’s travels, in (my office) she was known as the “Empress” for her lavish demands on the budget.”
Read the whole thing.
