Be Brave, Mac: Pick Condi for VP

Rice remains popular despite links to Iraq policy: New Yorker
By Jonas Oransky,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 10, 2008 9:00 PM CDT
Be Brave, Mac: Pick Condi for VP
Condoleezza Rice and John McCain attend a press conference in this undated file photo.   (AP photos)

Ditch the banal short-list and pick a running mate with pizazz—like Condoleezza Rice, Hendrik Hertzberg urges John McCain in the New Yorker. The best-liked Iraq war planner would trigger an "avalanche of positive publicity" on her personal success story, and let GOP voters crack a race-gender ceiling without having to choose. The trick would be ducking her failed record in office, Hertzberg writes.

The secretary of state has stumbled badly, "downgrading terrorism as a priority before 9/11" and "ignoring the Israel-Palestine problem until (almost certainly) too late." But she remains popular with voters and GOP leaders, and would keep up President Bush's push for black public officials. "This may turn out to the most positive legacy of his benighted Presidency," Hertzberg writes. (More John McCain stories.)

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