Remember the "boy meets girl, they fall in love" kind of fawning coverage that the media gave to Condi and Jack Straw when the visited Baghdad couple of weeks ago?
This ain't one of those.
BAGHDAD, April 27 -- A full 10 seconds of silence passed after a reporter asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld what the intense secrecy and security surrounding their visit to Iraq signified about the stability of the country three years after the U.S.-led invasion. Rice turned to Rumsfeld to provide the answer. Rumsfeld glared at the reporter.
More on the flip...
Wapo report on Rice, Rummy visit to Baghdad
But the contrast in the two secretaries' styles was sometimes jarring.
Even though her arrival here followed an exhausting sprint through Greece and Turkey, Rice appeared energized by the task at hand. Rumsfeld arrived directly from Washington -- after a recent Asian tour -- but he seemed disengaged and bored, both to reporters traveling with him and to some U.S. officials. Some said he seemed irritated by the whole exercise. He did not speak a word to reporters with him on the flight to Baghdad.
The reporter (Wapo's state dept reporter Glenn Kessler)
says that Rummy frequently doodled with a felt pen during a joint press conf looking at the ceiling.
When asked about the flap over Condi's "thousands of tactical errors"
Rumsfeld made no effort to smooth over the issue but pointed to Rice and said, "She's right here, and you can ask her." Rice noted that her comment about tactical errors had been made "not in the military sense."
Sounds like Rummy doesn't have a heart in the thing anymore. Another report noted that he did not have a peak into the press area on the 7-hr flight to Baghdad.
Maybe he knows that the zig is up or what?