Well, Condi has answered the burning question on every freeper’s mind and has ruled out a run for president in 2008. Like she even had a chance to begin with.

While I will give her credit for recognizing the advances that women have made into positions of power and have been “running and winning”, and think that we are long past due for a woman as president (since we are one of the very few industrialized countries that hasn’t had a woman as leader, let alone even RUN for president), her decision, not to mention the reasons for her to not run would make Captain Obvious look like a great visionary.

But oh, what a great primary season it would have been with you, Cat Killer MD and other republican luminaries providing endless amusement for us in the reality based community. Of course, you would have to explain why, as National Security Advisor, your big foreign policy speech that was to have been made on 9/11/01 was all about missile defense and didn’t mention terrorism or Al Qaeda at all. That would have been a treat to see you shaking in your Ferragamo boots to explain that one, or the near perfect way that you handled Tenet’s urgent request for a meeting regarding the 9/11 threats.

Oh, and we can’t forget how spot on you were about that whole “smoking gun-mushroom cloud thing:

The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly Saddam can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

Bravo, Dr. Rice. Bravo. But just one of many highlights from your wildly successful tenure as National Security Advisor.

Or, of course the reasons why the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing titled Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US was something that would lead to this famous remark:

I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.

Gee, I think even our vaunted fourth estate wouldn’t let that one slide again. Plus, someone that has such thin skin that you can’t even face tough questioning during a Senate hearing which would elevate you to the most important foreign policy position at a time when your negligence led to the biggest terrorist attack this country has ever seen wouldn’t fare so well in a debate with the foaming at the mouth “reformed” republican who no doubt would have sworn off all ties to anything related to the current administration.

And what a resume you could have trotted out in your campaign. Not only your wild successes as National Security Advisor, as noted above, but the “catastrophic success” of your tenure as Secretary of State. Take the defense of this administration’s stellar efforts in the Middle East:

Rice rejected the notion that U.S. operations in Iraq have shaken Middle East stability, arguing, “Those hostilities were not very well contained, as we found out on Sept. 11, and so the notion that somehow policies that finally confront extremism are actually causing extremism, I find grotesque.”

SLAM!!!! It is the critics that are grotesque. Perfect. Like those pesky spy agencies who say that Iraq has increased the threat of terrorism. And the way that you handled the Israel/Lebanon situation on your Middle East tour would make the best diplomat jealous:

On July 30, Associated Press writer Katherine Shrader reported that Condoleezza Rice had canceled a trip to Lebanon after Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and other Lebanese officials apparently made clear she “was not welcome to visit.”

What a shame. So many great credentials. Not only the wild successes over the past 6 years, but also the way that you set yourself apart from Big Oil and have allegiances to “We the People” when it comes to the oil industry and energy independence. But alas, what is one to do other than to lament those poor souls at Americans for Dr. Rice – 2008 who have invested so much time and energy behind all of the superb things that you have done for this country.

Oh well, I guess you can always fall back on something that you are very good at – helping Georgie when nature calls.

So sad, Condi. To think of what could have been….just do me a favor, and please – stay classy Condi. As you always have been.