Once upon a time, I liked Condoleezza Rice a lot. I daresay I might even have had a bit of a crush on her.
Rice was a fresh face in the white male Washington policy-making establishment. Her credentials were impeccable, and she was one of the few people among President Bush’s inner circle who didn’t seem to have become totally snoggered on the neocon Kool Aid.
That Rice’s favorite song was Mozart’s “Piano Concerto in D Minor” was a bonus, and I liked calling her “Condi.” This was a nice nickname that headline writers immediately took to, and she didn’t seem to object that I liked it. At least she never said so. By comparison, I couldn’t image calling Paul Wolfowitz “Wolfie,” and I knew that he would mind if I did.
In the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, I was somewhat perturbed when Rice . . . er, Condi admitted that she was still fighting the Cold War and had not given much thought to the War on Terror.
But I knew that she was one smart cookie, would learn on the run and adapt to the new realities. I even felt a little wounded by the slings and arrows of the know-it-all pundits who called her a lightweight. I had realized at that point that she didn’t know me from Mullah Omar, even though my beard is shorter than his and I don’t wear a headscarf, but I still felt like I should stick up for her.
Well, the pundits were right.
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