(WASHINGTON) (August 1, 2006) Last week I became the first columnist/analyst to call for the resignation or removal of Condoleezza Rice ("Condo") as Secretary of State. I won't be the last.

     Condo left Jerusalem Monday claiming there was an agreement in principle for a cease fire. Later Monday the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert shrieked "war." Condo had been stabbed in the back, another victim of Israeli treachery.

     She's toast.

     For the Israelis to publicly humiliate Condo was a disgrace and an insult to both the office of Secretary of State and the Bush administration. Or was it? Maybe the Bushies want Condo out and are trying to push her out by humiliating her. Who knows? Later Monday the president backed Israel, not his secretary of state. Hmmm.

     Was Condo the victim of a hit? Very possibly. At a minimum if she was not the victim of a deliberate hit she was the victim of her own missed signals and total incompetence. Which explanation do you prefer?

     The front page of Monday's New York Times says that "Israel suspending bombing…" Apparently not. Later, the Israelis issued a list of exceptions that made the "suspension" meaningless. They could strike at Hezbollah. Well, isn’t what that they have been doing for the past several weeks?

     The Bush White House and Condo have made a laughingstock of the United States. And, as my mother used to tell her students, ridicule is a very powerful form of destruction.

     And so, what I said last week, I repeat: Condo must go. The Israeli government is systematically destroying and dismembering the State of Israel and Condo/Bush are doing the same to the United States.

     Condo's whil 'o the wisp of a cease fire seemed to indicate that the madmen in Tel Aviv and Washington had receded from their diktat to the world: that the victors in this conflict surrender, and agree in advance to be taken prisoner by the losers. I do not see any possibility whatsoever that Hezbollah will surrender and beg for peace from Bush and Olmert. Israel is fighting an eighteenth century war against a twenty-first century adversary. Did the Viet Cong surrendered to the U. S? I don't remember it. Why should Hezbollah?

     Tomorrow we will discuss what should be done to end the conflict. As the great Hebrew prophet Ecclesiastes stated, "Sufficient to the Day is the evil thereof."

     Condo has disgraced the United States.

     Condo must go.