President Thanks Secretary Of State Rice At Swearing-In Ceremony

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
January 28, 2005

President Thanks Secretary of State Rice at Swearing-In Ceremony

U.S. Department of State

9:58 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all for coming. Laura and I are honored to be here. Over the past four years, America has benefited from the wise counsel of Dr. Condoleezza Rice and our family has been enriched by our friendship with this remarkable person. We love her -- I don't know if you're supposed to say that about the Secretary of State. (Laughter.)

Condi's appointment and confirmation of Secretary of State marks a remarkable transition in what is already a career of outstanding service and accomplishment.

Today also marks an opportunity to honor another career defined by service and accomplishment. Throughout a lifetime spent in public service, Colin Powell has asked nothing in return. For over four decades, millions at home and abroad have benefited from his bravery, his dignity and his integrity. He's left our nation a better place than it was when he began his career in public service as a second lieutenant in the United States Army. His magnificent wife, Alma, I am certain is pleased that a grateful nation is giving back her husband -- (laughter) -- and all of us admire and appreciate the service of Colin Powell. (Applause.)

I appreciate the fact that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg administered the oath. It was neighborly of her to do that. (Laughter.) I want to thank Congresswoman Jane Harman from California for joining us, as well as Juanita Millender-McDonald from California. We're honored you both are here. Thanks for taking time to honor your fellow Californian, Condi Rice. (Applause.)

I see sitting between you two is a fine American in Andrew Young. Welcome, Andy. Thank you for coming. I shouldn't start going around the room, heralding all the -- (laughter) -- accomplished souls who are here. I do want to thank members of the diplomatic corps for coming. I appreciate Your Excellencies taking time to honor Condi. I want to thank the distinguished guests and members -- folks who work at the State Department for joining us, as well. It's a good thing to come and honor your new boss. (Laughter.) Good diplomacy. (Laughter.)

Colin Powell leaves big shoes to fill at the State Department, but Condi Rice is the right person to fill them. As National Security Advisor, she has led during a time when events not of our choosing have forced America to the leading edge of history. Condi has an abiding belief in the power of democracy to secure justice and liberty, and the inclusion of men and women of all races and religions in the courses that free nations chart for themselves.

A few days from now, these convictions will be confirmed by the Iraqi people, when they cast their ballots in Iraq's first free elections in generations. Sunday's election is the first step in a process that will allow Iraqis to write and pass a constitution that enshrines self-government and the rule of law. This history is changing the world, because the advent of democracy in Iraq will serve as a powerful example to reformers throughout the entire Middle East. On Sunday, the Iraqi people will be joining millions in others parts of the world who now decide their future through free votes.

In Afghanistan, the people have voted in the first free presidential elections in that nation's 5,000-year history. The people of Ukraine have made clear their own desire for democracy. The Palestinians have just elected a new President who has repudiated violence. Freedom is on the march, and the world is better for it. (Applause.) Widespread hatred and radicalism cannot survive the advent of freedom and self-government. Our nation will be more secure, the world will be more peaceful, as freedom advances. Condi Rice understands that.

And the terrorists understand that, as well. And that is why they are now attacking Iraqi civilians in an effort to sabotage elections. We applaud the courage of ordinary Iraqis for their refusal to surrender their future to these killers.

No nation can build a safer and better world alone. The men and women of the State Department are doing a fine job of working with other nations to build on the momentum of freedom. I know our nation will be really well served when the good folks at the State Department join with Condi Rice to face the many challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. In the coming months and years, we must stop the proliferation of dangerous weapons and materials. We must safeguard and expand the freedom of international marketplace and free trade. We must advance justice and fundamental human rights. We must fight HIV/AIDS and other diseases and reduce poverty.

Each task will require good relations with nations around the world, and each will require a Secretary who will lead by character and conviction and wisdom. To meet these times and tasks, America has its best in Dr. Condoleezza Rice, now Secretary Condoleezza Rice, our 66th Secretary of State. (Applause.)

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you, Mr. President, for those wonderful remarks. I want to thank also First Lady Laura Bush. The President and Mrs. Bush have been really a strong support system for me here and good friends, and I want to thank you for that.

I want to thank the members of my family and my friends who are here -- a number are here from Birmingham, Alabama, and they represent generations of Rices and Rays, who believed that a day like this might somehow be possible.

I'm honored by your confidence in me, Mr. President, and I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity you've given me to serve as this country's 66th Secretary of State.

Let me say, too, in echoing the President's comments, that I'm, indeed, fortunate to succeed a man of the character and quality of Colin Powell, who served with such distinction, who's done so much to strengthen the State Department, so much to carry forward America's message and goals and so much to help me, personally, in so many ways.

In the past four years, America has seen great trials and great opportunities. Under your leadership, Mr. President, our nation has risen to meet the challenges of our time, fighting tyranny and terror and securing the blessings of freedom and prosperity for a new generation.

Now it's time to build on those achievements to make the world safer and even more free. We must use American diplomacy to help create a balance of power that favors freedom. The time

for diplomacy is now. Standing for the cause of liberty is as old as our country itself. Indeed, it was our very first Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, who said, "The God who gave us live, gave us liberty at the same time." America's story is the story of men and women ceaselessly striving to ensure that we as a nation live up to the ideals set forth by our forefathers. Our founders realized that they, like all human beings, were flawed creatures, and that any government created by man would not be perfect. Even the great authors of our liberty sometimes fell short of their ideals -- even Thomas Jefferson, himself. Yet, our forebears established a democratic system of, by and for the people that contained within it the means for citizens and -- of conviction and of courage to correct its flaws.

The enduring principles enshrined in our Constitution made it possible for impatient patriots -- like Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King -- to move us ever closer to our founding ideals. And so it is only natural that through the decades America would associate itself with those around the world who also strive to secure freedom for themselves and for their children.

September 11, 2001, made us see more clearly than ever how our values and our interests are linked and joined across the globe. That day of fire made us see that the best way to secure a world of peace and hope is to build a world of freedom. We do not simply seek the absence of terrorism. We seek a world where the aspirations for freedom of men and women triumph. Today, it is more fitting than ever that our nation should pursue a foreign policy that is grounded in democratic principles and aligns itself with the efforts of all those around the globe who share our love of liberty.

In all that lies ahead, the primary instrument of American diplomacy will be the Department of State, and the dedicated men and women of its foreign and civil services and our foreign service nationals. More than half a century ago, Dean Acheson and his officers stood present at the creation, in helping President Truman secure a world half free, while hoping that there would one day be a world fully free.

Mr. President, here with us today are some of the newest members of the State Department. The young officers here today are present at the transformation. And they will carry forward long into the future the work that we are undertaking to realize your vision of a world where all people live in freedom.

Under your leadership, Mr. President, we at the Department of State will conduct a foreign policy that sees the world clearly as it is. But, Mr. President, we will not accept that today's reality has to be tomorrow's. We will work in partnership with allies and reformers across the globe, putting the tools of diplomacy to work to unite, strengthen and widen the community of democracies.

We fully recognize that the hard work of freedom is the task of generations. Yet, it is also the urgent work that cannot be deferred. And, ultimately, the impatient souls all around the world who struggle and stumble and rise again to take up freedom's cause will succeed -- for the great mover of history is the power of the human spirit.

Mr. President, you have given us our mission, and we are ready to serve our great country and the cause of freedom for which it stands.

Thank you. (Applause.)

END 10:11 A.M. EST

Found this illuminating article on Condi Rice (from 2000) here: ‘Condi’ Rice: Presbyterian with faith, political mettle

‘Condi’ Rice: Presbyterian
with faith, political mettle

By John H. Adams
The Presbyterian Layman
Volume 33, Number 6
Posted November 22, 2000

Condoleezza Rice

In August, George Will wrote a column about Condoleezza Rice. It was mostly quotes. Anybody who has read Will’s books or columns knows well that he rarely yields his pen to repeat what others say. But Condoleezza Rice is not just another subject to be parsed by the pundits. She is quotable.

She is also 45, single, black, attractive, Southern, Republican, evangelical, Presbyterian, an expert on Russia, a classical pianist and wannabe commissioner, yes indeed, of the National Football League. In short, she is multi-talented – a conservative who conquers with charm and a mind of steel.

Few believe she will use her velvet glove to handle the brutes in the NFL; she has become such a political luminary that she could also become, in the vernacular of baseball – another of her passions – a doubleheader: the first woman president of the United States and the first black president of the United States.

On most Sundays, she takes a seat in a pew at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in California, near Stanford University where she was a political science professor on tenure track and later served as provost, from age 39 to 44, when she resigned to help in the Bush campaign. Otherwise, she’s on the run, speaking expertly on international affairs, especially eastern Europe, and showing a political mettle that began to draw national attention when she made a prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention.

“Condi” Rice worked for President George W. Bush in the White House two years as assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Soviet affairs at the National Security Council. She and George W. share a slew of interests: physical fitness, Major League baseball, professional football, politics and their evangelical faith. Neither is a shrinking violet when it comes professing faith in Christ.

In grit and talent, Rice is no Condi-come-lately. Her destiny’s tracks were shaped by a paternal grandfather who in 1918 wanted an education and sold enough cotton to pay for one year at Stillman College in Alabama, a Presbyterian school for blacks.

“After the first year, he ran out of cotton and he needed a way to pay for college,” Rice said, retelling the story during the GOP convention. “Praise be, as he often does, God gave him an answer. My grandfather asked how those other boys were staying in school, and he was told that they had what was called a scholarship. And they said, ‘If you wanted to be a Presbyterian minister, then you can have one, too.’ Granddaddy Rice said, ‘That’s just what I had in mind.’ And my family has been Presbyterian and college-educated ever since.” There is a reason her favorite Gospel song is His Eye Is on the Sparrow.

Her name fits. Condoleezza comes from the Italian musical term con dolcezza, to perform with sweetness. That has marked her political and academic career. Yet she is a force to be reckoned with. Chevron recognizes that quality. It christened one of its oil tankers The Condoleezza Rice. It has not run aground.

George W. Bush and his wife Laura with Dr. Condoleezza Rice

Upon leaving the security of Stanford to join the Bush campaign, Rice was the toast of the campus at several events in her honor. She was asked about heading into a future that is uncertain. “Ambiguity has never bothered me at all,” she said. “I think that part of it is that I’m pretty religious, and that probably helps to make one less fearful and more optimistic about what’s possible.”

Born in Birmingham, Rice holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Denver, a master’s degree from Notre Dame and a doctorate from the University of Denver’s Graduate School of International Studies. Although once told in Birmingham that she was not “college material,” she skipped two years of grade school and graduated from the University of Denver at age 19.

Before working at the White House, she taught political science at Stanford and won a raft of teaching awards.

Today, Rice is a fellow of the Hoover Institute on the Stanford campus, which keeps her connected to the academic community while she travels for and advises Bush. But she is not an academic high-brow immune to common-sense arguments about politics. In one interview, she declared point-blank that she favors the 2nd Amendment (the right to bear arms). She explained: During the days of the civil rights movement, many blacks in Birmingham who were not taking part in demonstrations and thereby not committed to nonviolence believed they had the right to defend themselves if attacked.

Rice did grow up in Jim Crow Alabama. And she lost a childhood friend in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing. But her family lived on the quiet side of the civil rights revolution. Her father was a Republican and dean of Stillman, later to become the assistant chancellor of the University of Denver. Her mother taught music and science.

The Rice File
Born: Nov. 14, 1954, in Birmingham, Ala.

Education: B.A., Ph.D., University of Denver; studied under Josef Korbel, Madeleine Albright’s father

Career highlights: NSC staff member under George Bush; special assistant to the president; provost of Stanford University

Hobbies: Practicing the piano; watching football

Rice began college as a music major, planning to become a concert pianist. But an international relations class taught by Madeleine Albright’s father sidetracked her into Soviet studies. (Music has not been exiled, however. She performs at recitals and spends a week every summer at a piano camp in Montana, playing Brahms for 12 hours a day.)

Rice characterizes herself as an “all-over-the-map Republican.” She says she is “very conservative” in foreign policy, “ultra-conservative” in other areas, “almost shockingly libertarian” on some issues, “moderate” on others, and “liberal” on probably nothing.

She has declared several times that her dream job is NFL commissioner, which prompted the current commissioner, Paul Tagliabue, to ask her why she was angling for his job. “Not to worry,” she said, “but let me know when you’re thinking of retiring.”

Rice is often asked whether her color and sex are advantages or disadvantages. “I don’t spend too much time thinking about it,” she said in an interview by The National Review. “I can’t go back and recreate myself as a white male.”

She identifies with black leaders and their causes, but not in anger. “I have a very, very powerful faith in God. I’m a really religious person, and I don’t believe that I was put on this earth to be sour, so I’m eternally optimistic about things.”

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