Recipe for Disaster: Rice Seeks Mideast Advice from Carter, Clinton

All I can figure is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has completely taken leave of her senses.

The absolute last people on the face of the earth she should be getting tips from are a guy who had his pants around his ankles for eight years and the worst president ever, an Israel-hating one at that.

Rice taps Clinton, Carter for Middle East advice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Anxious not to repeat mistakes of past Middle East peace-making, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has turned to former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter for tips ahead of her own conference this year.

OK, you want to avoid repeating mistakes, so you get advice from the clowns who made them?

Huh?

Rice invited Carter, a vocal critic of Bush administration policies, to the State Department on Wednesday where the two discussed his Arab-Israeli peacemaking efforts in the 1970s, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Friday.

Their talks were "good and cordial," he said. They focused on the Middle East and not Carter's recent criticism of President George W. Bush's policies in Iraq and elsewhere.

A Soviet specialist, Rice also telephoned another former Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who tried, and ultimately failed, in his eight years in office to bring the Israelis and Palestinians together.

The mind boggles.

Rice has made clear she will devote all her energy in the Bush administration's final 14 months to get what others have failed to attain in the past -- a viable, independent Palestinian state living side by side with a secure Israel.

Give it up now. Only one side is interested in peace here, and it isn't the Palestinians.