Last week President Bush unveiled his new plan for Iraq that's supposed to bring the country out of its quickly spiraling demise. The plan is to increase troops by around 22,000. The talking heads on Fox News were saying, predictably, that the democrats should be wild for Bush's plan, since they had called for more troops themselves.

What the talking heads forgot was that democrats called for more troops during the initial occupation of Iraq, not years later when we are in the middle of a civil war.

Now that Donald "Rummy" Rumsfeld is gone, who will be there to go to bat for the president over his policies concerning the Iraq war? Condoleezza Rice has stepped up to the plate, like she always has, as Bush's eternal "yes man," or in this case, "yes woman."

Rice, or "Condi," as she is endearingly known, can usually be counted on to repeat exactly what the president has said while keeping her cool and earning such insults from late night shows as a cold dominatrix of sorts, or as the president's "second wife."

Just think back to Rice's exchange during her confirmation hearings with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., over whether or not the Bush administration had lied to the nation about going to war in Iraq. Rice remarked that weapons of mass destruction were not the driving force for the war, even though Bush administration officials appeared every night on the news touting their supposed existence.

Condi can keep her cool while telling half-truths and bold-faced lies, never openly showing her partisanship or telling lies so ridiculous the common person could see right through them.

Well, last week Condi lost her cool. She slipped up big time in a number of ways and lost popularity with her own party. Rice was brought before the Senate for questioning on Bush's new plan of action in Iraq. She rejected the notion that Bush was escalating the troop numbers, and Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., asked her if "putting 22,000 new troops, more troops in, is not an escalation?"

Rice then proceeded with the convoluted response, "I would call it, Senator, an augmentation." Does Rice have nothing better to come up with besides word debates? According to a recent Gallup Poll, 61 percent of respondents were opposed to a troop increase, and only 36 percent supported one. Somehow it doesn't seem that Rice's word game is going to change the facts of the case.

The second slip on the list was when Rice said "My Fox guys, I love every single one of them." Talk about letting something slip out; remember when Fox used to carry the moniker "fair and balanced?" The media is supposed to be independent of the government, not the secretary of state's "guys."

So, is it just apparent to liberals like myself that Condoleezza Rice has gone off the deep end and given up her guard? Apparently not. Robert Novak stated in the Washington Post that there were various republican sources that didn't want to be quoted, but had very negative things to say about her.

Novak's sources told him that Rice is a mess. Novak then went on to list Rice's previous jobs, stating that she was an analyst and never a manager, implying that the stress has apparently gotten to her.

So why has Rice cracked? Has the stress of the war and a new democratic Congress gotten to her? Without Rumsfeld by her side to repeat the same lies, can she not do it on her own? Perhaps Novak is right, Rice is just an analyst, Rumsfeld was the manager when it came to lies and she just can't handle the stress on her own. All the blame shouldn't be put on her though; look at what Bush is giving her to work with. He makes a speech just to tell people he wants to escalate troop numbers in an already unpopular war. What did he expect Rice to say for him?

I must admit that I do miss the days of a defiant Condoleezza Rice, mindlessly denying any wrongdoing on the President's behalf and at least putting up a good fight, but this past week was just sad to watch.

Rice is still a "yes woman," and if anything her lies are just as pathetic as Bush's original statements. So Bush has lost his most valuable asset: yes men that can cover up, or at least attempt to cover up, all his mistakes.

With Rice losing her edge, even the "yes woman" for a lame duck president turned out pretty lame as well.

Reach columnist Hunter Kincaid at hunterkincaid@thedaily.washington.edu