"State Department officials dislike her intensely because they love Powell and believe her staff demeaned the State Department," the Washington Post today quoted one former pencil pusher at State as saying.

Good!

Consider their whining a ringing endorsement, if you recall NewsMax's exclusive report on the State Department's war with the Bush White House. Remember that the infamously wimpy department even invited hatemongering billionaire George Soros, who tried but failed to buy the presidential election for John Kerry, to speak at its forum.

The Post claimed, "Officials on both sides of the administration's debate over North Korea faulted Rice for failing to fashion a coherent approach to dismantling North Korea's nuclear program." The pro-Democrat paper failed to mention that it was Bill Clinton and his horrible secretary of state Madeleine Albright who abetted North Korea's nuclear weapons program with U.S. taxpayer dollars.

In another anti-Rice story, the Post even solicited comment from Clinton's disgraced former national security adviser, Sandy "Sox Docs" Berger.

Berger lectured that there would be "teeth-gnashing" by many foreign officials over Colin Powell's departure and Rice's arrival. "Colin was the side door they could get into when they could not get through the front door," the disgraced Clintonista said.

The Post, naturally, continued the media establishment's wall of silence about Berger's theft of documents from the National Archives by refusing even to mention his scandal.

Here's hoping that Rice, with help from State's patriotic loyalists such as undersecretary John Bolton, can finally clean up the department.

Hooray: France Doesn't Like Her Either

More proof of Rice's backbone: The weaselly French don't like her either.

According to the Associated Press, the axis of weasel is in a dither over something "Rice was widely quoted as telling associates" in the spring of 2003: "Punish France, ignore Germany, and forgive Russia."

Even though France has just begun to smell the rotten fruits of its policies punishing Israel and favoring Muslim terrorists, the left-wing daily Liberation complained about Rice's "very hard and firm tone with which she speaks of the Palestinians."

French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier sniffed today, "Condi Rice is a woman with character; that's the least we can say."

Editor's note: