Rice Star on Rise As Public Sours on Bush

AP on Yahoo ^ | 12/25/05 | Anne Gearan - ap

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has become the most popular member of the Bush administration and a potential candidate to succeed her boss in the White House, even as Americans lose confidence in the president she serves and patience with the Iraq war she helped launch.

Entering her second year as the country's senior diplomat and foreign policy spokeswoman, Rice has improbably shed much of her image as the hawkish "warrior princess" at President Bush's side. The nickname was reportedly bestowed by her staff at the White House National Security Council, where Rice was an intimate member of Bush's first-term war council.

Rice resolutely defends the post-Sept. 11 war on terrorism and the expansive executive powers that Bush claims came with it. She has lately sounded more optimistic than Bush about the progress of the Iraq war and the future for that country.

Yet, it is unusual to hear anyone talk about Rice as an architect of either of those two defining undertakings of the Bush presidency.

By a mix of charm, luck and physical distance from the White House, Rice has managed to escape the fate of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who saw their public approval ratings fall to historic lows before rebounding slightly recently.

Kurt Campbell, director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, credits Rice's heavy travel schedule, an approach to diplomacy that is more pragmatic than other Bush advisers, and a measure of personal pluck.

"She appears to have sort of skated away" from controversies over U.S. intelligence failures and aggressive U.S. tactics in the hunt for terrorists, Campbell said, and from the perception that the United States is "slogging" along in Iraq.

"She appears at once to be close to the president but separate and detached from some of the foibles of the administration, and that's a very hard thing to pull off," he said.

Rice was as strong a public voice as any for going to war in Iraq. She once famously warned of Saddam Hussein's presumed weapons of mass destruction: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Although Rice's first-term record on Iraq, terrorism and other subjects made for a contentious Senate confirmation hearing last January, most Americans apparently do not hold her personally responsible.

A Pew Research survey in October found that 60 percent of respondents held either a very favorable or mostly favorable view of Rice, while 25 percent had a very or mostly unfavorable view — numbers others in the Bush administration can only envy.

Two years after ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was captured, 64 percent of respondents said the Iraq war was the right thing to do. An AP-Ipsos poll this month showed that only 42 percent now say it was the right decision, and support has also dropped for staying in Iraq until the country is stabilized.

As for Bush, 42 percent said in this month's AP poll that they approve of his job performance, while 57 percent disapproved. That was up from a 37 percent approval rating in November, but well below his stratospheric numbers after Sept. 11.

Rice still has a long way to go to convince skeptics overseas that the United States is not pursuing a misadventure in Iraq, and she will always be the public face abroad of an administration that many in Europe and the Arab world distrust, said Nathan Brown, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"She may present a slightly softer image, a slightly friendlier image, one that is not knee-jerk defensive" on issues like the mistreatment of terrorism detainees, Brown said. "But there are limits to what she can do so long as the policy is unpopular."

There is a glamour factor to Rice's appeal, and curiosity about the first black woman to hold the nation's top diplomatic post.

Rice, 51, grew up in the segregated South. She tries to soften the brash image the United States often projects abroad by telling audiences the discrimination she faced is proof that America isn't perfect.

Rice has never married. She works long hours and keeps fit with a rigorous daily exercise regimen. A clotheshorse, Rice has posed for Vogue magazine in a couture ball gown.

She is fiercely loyal to Bush, and tries to downplay her own rising stock and his public slide. Although mentioned as a possible Republican candidate for president in 2008, Rice says she has never wanted to run for elected office.

"I've got my hands full and I know what my skills, I think, are," Rice said in an Associated Press interview this month.

She declined to point to any specific accomplishments for which she takes personal credit, although she said she is pleased by developments including warmer US-European relations after a chill over the Iraq invasion.

"I'm a historian," Rice said in the interview. "I tend to see things in the big sweep of history and hope that at some point somebody is going to look back and say, oh, something that she did then mattered."

___

Editors Anne Gearan covers foreign affairs in Washington for The Associated Press

[hedgetrimmer]

The CFR is terrified that none of their candidates will get selected for the presidency. Look for a media blizzard promoting Rice for president.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Oh, Puh-LEEZE! :(

[fedupjohn]

Where is the Barf Alert!

[staytrue]

but she isn't Presidential timber

She got more timber than former fraternity party boy Bush had. And I like Bush a lot.

[staytrue]

Experience in elected office is vastly different than an appointed position

You mean like Dwight Eisenhower ?

[sangoo]

...Bush will go down in history as one of the great liberators and bringers of peace and prosperity amongst mortal men. He is ushering in a change and potential for transformation into the middle east and elsewhere that very few could scaresly comprehend, much less set in motion and achieve..

Sorry, but I'm having trouble comprehending this myself. I don't see this as a good thing. His approach to Isreal seems to be to pressure them to give away the land the Lord gave them. This cannot bode well for the United States.

[The South Texan]

You can't spell crAP without an AP. Don't forget that line.

Seems like alot of the JV squad or 2nd teamers are writing articles for the AP the last few days. The first team must be on vacation. Not the the first teamers or varsity is any better.

[section9]

Did you take note that as he fought back and his poll numbers rose, all of a sudden the New York Slimes just had to reveal the NSA eavesdropping and monitoring of MOsques for radiation?

Never mind both are legal and needed, anything to denigrate a good President.

Every hit piece has a purpose.

The purpose of this story by this reporter, Anne Gearan, is to drive a wedge between Condi Rice and the President by pointing out Rice's popularity relative to that of Bush. What Gearan and other liberals fail to realize is that Bush does not care whether or not Rice is more popular than he is. In fact, the more popular Condi is, the more effective she is at her job, which is executing the President's foreign policy.

This piece will have the opposite effect of its purpose. Long ago Rice and the President gave up on trying to appease the hateful media. Now they are merely tools to be manipulated, if possible.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[operation clinton cleanup]

Rice has improbably shed much of her image as the hawkish "warrior princess" at President Bush's side. The nickname was reportedly bestowed by her staff at the White House National Security Council, where Rice was an intimate member of Bush's first-term war council.

I call Bull Sh!t! The author of this article made up the name "warrior princess"!

[Eagles Talon IV]

"That is why they hate him so."

The libs despise anyone that exhibits the courage of their convictions because they have neither courage nor convictions. Every day they see him as president is another day they are reminded of their own staggering inadequacies. Worse yet they know that the public sees the great difference between the president and them.

[eskimo]

Rice Star on Rise As Public Sours on Bush

Another CFR Marxist type minion.

Elevating such a person would be a great insult to the American people.

[Eagles Talon IV]

"His approval could be 70% and they would still pull these stunts"

If everything where as it is today and the only difference was that a Democrat was in the WH, you can bet his approval ratings would be at 70%

[Mr. Brightside]

"As public sours on Bush?"

The president has gone from a 37 percent approval rating to over 50 percent in less than 3 weeks.

If that is "souring," we need more of it.

[streetpreacher]

Good for Congress; no need to fund another State department approved genocide.

[no dems]

"Go Condi!"

What do you think are her chances of becoming the 44th President of the United States? Personally, I think she would put a cowboy whuppin' on Hillary; and anyone else the Dim-o-rats nominate.

What say ye?

[no dems]

If I'm not mistaken on my History, six (6) Secretaries of State have later become President.

[streetpreacher]

"I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL GOP establishment. The media GOP establishment has been very desirous that a black quarterback female do well. "There is a little hope invested in McNabb Rice, and he she got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he she didn't deserve. The defense conservative base carried this team."

[anniegetyourgun]

LOL...it's that or Kool-Aid!

[jmaroneps37]

AP: the ratmedia on drugs.

[Jeff Head]

IMHO, that liberty and change, ultimately will open up those countries to the gospel of Jesus Christ in ways that could not have been concieved before. Those people will at last have the opportunity to consider and choose for themselves over time...and that is good for the whole world, including the US. Just my opinion.