Where's the upside here?

There was an interesting cri de coeur the other day in the Boston Globe concerning Secretary of State Rice's upcoming commencement address at Boston College. An adjunct professor of English decried her invitation, claiming that her selection does not reflect the humanitarian values that all Jesuit colleges profess. I don't know about that, but I do wonder why the Secretary gets such consistently adulatory press, considering that she has been wrong about virtually every major decision/issue in which she has been involved. She told us after 9/11 that no one imagined that people would try to hijack and crash planes into buildings, when there had been at least two such plots foiled before the attacks. She told us that we had to attack Saddam pre-emptively, lest the "smoking gun" of WMD become a "mushroom cloud." Hers was among the voices assuring us that we would be greeted with flowers and celebration by a grateful Iraq since we would be "liberators" and not "occupiers." When it was clear that there were no WMD in Iraq, she helped change the subject to democracy promotion and liberating millions of people from dictatorship, failing utterly to admit that the administration had made a real mistake. She was among those who insisted that the Palestinians hold elections, yet now excoriates them for choosing the "wrong" people. And now she seems to be leading the chorus demanding an aggressive response to Iran and its intention to acquire nuclear weapons. Where has Secretary Rice made a positive contribution here? Maybe I am missing something.
Nonetheless, there are people who vote her onto the list of "most admired women" in America, ask her to write profiles of Oprah Winfrey for Time magazine and even want to draft her for the 2008 Republican Presidential campaign. There are ads on all the major newspaper sites for the Draft Condi campaign. I freely admit she is intelligent, articulate and well-dressed, but where has she used these gifts to a positive end? Where? Are you automatically a most-admired person and potential Presidential candidate because you have name recognition and a good acquaintance with the elements of Style?