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As the new "peace" talks between the Palestinians, Israelis, and Syrians begin in Annapolis this week, the NY Times has written a fairly comprehensive synopsis of the Middle East peace process up to this point. It generally tracks how Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld decided very early on (Jan. 2001) to disengage from the middle east because, as usual, they thought that anything Bill Clinton took on had to be bad. Because Clinton almost forged peace between Arafat and Sharon, the Bushies figured that it had to be a waste of time.

Meanwhile, Colin Powell, then Secretary of State, was swimming against the current as the years progressed, trying to forge a new "Road Map" to peace. Achieving very little and always fighting the Bushies back in Washington, he then retired. Condi Rice became the new Secretary of State after Bush was re-elected in 2004.

Near the end of the piece, there's this stunning quote, straight from Condi's mouth, concerning the Palestinian elections when Hamas won over Fatah:

Ms. Rice, who had heralded the election as a symbol of the new stirrings of democracy in the Middle East, was so blindsided by the victory that she was startled when she saw a crawl of words on her television screen while exercising on her elliptical trainer the morning after the election: "In wake of Hamas victory, Palestinian cabinet resigns."

"I thought, 'Well, that's not right,'" Ms. Rice recalled. When the crawl continued, she got off the elliptical trainer and called the State Department.

"I said, 'What happened in the Palestinian elections?'" Ms. Rice recalled. "And they said, 'Oh, Hamas won.' And I thought, 'Oh my goodness, Hamas won?'"

Incredibly, our own Secretary of State not only didn't know which side was slated to win, but found out about it from CNN. AND, she chose to work out on her elliptical trainer before finding out who won the election!

It's pretty unbelievable, actually, and puts her competence - or lack thereof - pretty clearly in focus. Scary, indeed...

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