In the New York Times they quote the Secretary of State as saying:
Ms. Rice pointed out that the election results surprised just about everyone. "I don't know anyone who wasn't caught off guard by Hamas's strong showing," she said on her way to London for meetings on the Middle East, Iran and other matters. "Some say that Hamas itself was caught off guard by its strong showing."
I guess Dr. Rice should get to know me, and we could read the f***ing newspaper together at breakfast, so as not to be surprised by entirely predictable events. Just this morning I was finishing the Guardian Weekly from before the Palestinian election which predicted that Sharon's stroke, and Fatah's impotence would make it highly likely that Hamas would do very well. In any case, isn't it the job of the Secretary of State and her staff to imagine the possible outcomes of the election and prepare for them? That really couldn't be too hard in this case: there were two main parties contesting the election, how much effort is involved in wondering about what would happen if each of them were to win?
Posted by robe0419 at January 30, 2006 1:06 PM