Posted on 02/08/2005 6:58:30 AM PST by untenured
ERUSALEM, Feb. 6 - Just before leaving on her first trip as secretary of state on Thursday, Condoleezza Rice joked at a "town hall" meeting with State Department employees: "I'm going to go to 10 countries in seven days or something like that. I think they're not actually telling me. They don't want me to know."
But as Ms. Rice heads toward the halfway point of a grueling schedule - highlighted by her arrival on Sunday for intensive talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders - it is clear that the trip was planned down to the minute by the secretary herself.
In a reflection of her zeal for meticulous organization, aides say that an initial itinerary was outlined on the day her nomination was announced in November, along with a schedule of other trips and appearances for her first 180 days in office.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was "the general" to some aides, but Ms. Rice has gone about this trip like a commander on a military campaign.
She is up well before sunrise at the hotels where she is staying, and like her boss, President Bush, works out on an elliptical trainer, sometimes in her room and sometimes in the fitness center. She also uses free weights and an exercise bicycle. She obsessively eats light, gets a full night's sleep and cannot stand to be late - indeed, she likes surprising people by arriving early.
To make sure she is heard, Ms. Rice gives a slew of interviews at each stop. She also directed that several staff members be moved off her plane to make room for an expanded press contingent, and she handed out autographed pocket atlases to the correspondents to signal her intention to be on the road a lot.
Newspapers and television programs have treated Ms. Rice as a celebrity with the ear of Mr. Bush. In Berlin, she and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder faced a row of 30 television cameras and a wall of still cameras that exploded with flashes and clicks every time she turned her head. "I don't think I've ever seen that many cameras," she said afterward.
In a departure from custom, she goes into meetings with only a small number of aides, and the staff has been asked to board buses, not limousines, for her motorcades, to keep convoys small and less disruptive.
No less disciplined and focused is Ms. Rice's message. At every stop, she hammers the idea now enshrined in President Bush's Inaugural Address that the central focus of American foreign policy is freedom and liberty, two words that get repeated endlessly in her talks.
If Ms. Rice were a presidential candidate - she laughed when David Frost of the BBC asked her about "Condi for 2008" supporters - she would be a campaign manager's dream. She is always on message. Any tiny unexpected comment - like when she said there was no plan to attack Iran "at this point in time" - generates headlines.
The overarching purpose of Ms. Rice's trip has been to repair the trans-Atlantic rupture over Iraq and ease tensions connected to policy differences over such issues as American opposition to the International Criminal Court, criticism of the administration's degree of involvement in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and fears that Iran may be the American military's next target.
Despite the avowed purpose of smoothing over those and other differences, Ms. Rice has been unyielding in defending administration positions. At the same time, she has kept the focus on the broad and idealistic theme in Europe, where cold war memories are still fresh, that the current generation of leaders of the West must be as farsighted as those who stood up to imperial communism when the Iron Curtain divided the continent a half century ago.
In her days as an academic and policy adviser in the first Bush administration, Ms. Rice was known as a "realist" who believed in dealing with the world as it is. But like President Bush, Ms. Rice changed - and was influenced by administration conservatives - by Sept. 11, 2001, her aides say.
As secretary, she says her calling is "transformational diplomacy," meaning the goal is to transform the world, not simply to deal with it, - to press American "values" as well as American interests while insisting to sometimes skeptical audiences that those two goals do not conflict.
To many listeners, especially in Europe, her words come across as visionary but bordering on shrill, messianic or sanctimonious.
A European diplomat, grimacing at the sharp words directed at Iran - she called its human rights record "abysmal" and worthy of being "loathed" - wondered whether they would help or hurt the Europeans' effort to negotiate with Iran. "I'm uncomfortable with her lack of subtlety," he said.
In Britain, a questioner asked if it was not hypocritical of her to attack Iran on human rights while American allies like Saudi Arabia were let off the hook. Ms. Rice said that the United States expected "all states" to make progress on human rights and that some Arab countries were doing so. The skepticism remained in the air, however.
There is also evidence on this trip of Ms. Rice's two favorite side interests: football and music.
Ms. Rice said in Israel that she might try to stay up and watch some of the Super Bowl, which begins at 1:30 a.m. Monday local time, but aides said it was more likely that she would watch the very end of it while exercising in the early morning and later look at the whole game on tape. Meanwhile, she has told aides that the New England Patriots will win by 3 points.
The secretary plans to stop at a music school in Paris this week and to tour the Pantheon in Rome, and has told aides she wants to make cultural stops on future trips, too.
As national security adviser, Ms. Rice sometimes entertained foreign visitors at her Watergate apartment by playing Brahms on her grand piano. She continues to play chamber music with friends on weekends, and she charmed State Department employees by telling them that "maybe one of these days I'll try to get it together and play for you."
But throughout this trip, Ms. Rice has used free moments to work on what aides say will be her most important speech, in Paris, before a large audience of intellectuals.
Aides are talking excitedly about it as "the hottest ticket in Europe," as if she were confronting the lion in its den. Ms. Rice, some speculate, may even speak - in French. One thing for sure, the words "freedom," "liberty," though perhaps not "fraternity," will be there, in abundance.
Meanwhile, she has told aides that the New England Patriots will win by 3 points.
I hope he's not trying to be cute with his reference to Globetrotter, as in the Harlem Globetrotters.
Meanwhile, she has told aides that the New England Patriots will win by 3 points.Good catch.
Hmmmm.
"Globetrotter"?
NYT = racist lefties, IMO
The way this quote is taken out of context, makes her sound egocentric. Here's the context, which demonstrates her more humble attitude.
QUESTION: [by Tory Birks]My question is of a little lighter note, and I intentionally use the word "note." Anyone who has done any research on your background knows that you're a pretty accomplished musician, and I'm a musician as well, so what I would like to know is, during these next four years, do you plan to give us a concert?
(Laughter.) (Applause.)
SECRETARY RICE: Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that invitation and when I'm not on an airplane, I'll try to work and see if I can't do that. [snip] I started piano lessons when I was about three-and-a-half years old because my grandmother taught piano,[snip]
But then I went off to college. And about halfway through college I went to a very well known music festival and I encountered 12-year-olds who could play from sight what it had taken me all year to learn. And I thought, I'm going to end up playing a piano bar someplace (laughter) or maybe play at Nordstrom, (laughter) but I'm not going to end up playing at Carnegie Hall. (Applause.)
And so I decided to major in something else.[snip] And that's what got me into this field, but I do still play. And I play mostly chamber music now, so maybe one of these days I'll try to get it together and play for you.
SECRETARY RICE: Remarks at Town Hall Meeting, January 31, 2005
You are 100% correct! The higher Dr. Rice's profile gets, the more obvious the inherent racism of the MSM and the Democrats will become.
"I'm uncomfortable with her lack of subtlety," he said.
He's more comfortable with two-faced liars.
Stupid NYTimes. It's "Libertie...Egalitie...Fraternitie". Liberty, eqaulity, brotherhood.
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