Condi the hawk

The president's second-term foreign policy team defies Euro-babbling caricatures and Foggy Bottom naysayers | Bob Jones

American foreign policy will soon have a new face—and much of the world is already doodling in red horns and a curled moustache.

President Bush's nomination of Condoleezza Rice to succeed Colin Powell as secretary of state sent shudders down the world's spine. With his soft-spoken manner and moderate image, Mr. Powell was widely seen as the voice of sanity in American foreign relations. His successor, on the other hand, is viewed as a presidential clone, a hard-liner who believes America should run roughshod over the international community.

"Among the most pessimistic conjectures made when George W. Bush gained reelection was that with a mandate, he'd keep Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon and nominate Rice to replace Powell," the French newspaper Le Monde said. "The second of those has now come true. . . . It is bad news for European leaders."