Posted on 07/26/2006 4:23:45 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
It has always mystified me that Condoleezza Rice is a Republican. She's black, she's a woman, she's smart. (OK, I hear all you Republicans snorting and getting ready to e-mail. I will grudgingly allow there are other bright right-wingers -- but few black women Republicans, and who would sign up after the disasterous Bush White House response to Hurricane Katrina?)
It seems so counterintuitive that Rice, a woman raised in the racially charged atmosphere of Birmingham, Ala., in the 1950s, who knew two of the girls who were killed in the church bombing there in 1963, who had to overcome latent prejudice in academia, both as a woman and as an African American, should be a parrot for George W. Bush, a man so out of touch. What has she been smoking?
In fact, Rice was a bona fide Democrat until 1980, when she had an epiphany after overhearing a remark by President Jimmy Carter. He said he was shocked by the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Rice, a scholar of Russian politics, was "shocked that anybody would be shocked by that," explained Nicholas Lemann in a profile of Rice for the New Yorker. Two years later she flipped to the GOP.
In some ways, Rice had always been a conservative, Lemann reported, untouched by the militancy of the '60s, including the civil rights movement; an only child who never rebelled; a woman who applied for post-graduate work at Stanford University on stationery that had her name embossed in gold across the top.
But as the saying goes, it's never too late to change. Or, in Rice's case, revert.
The Democrats could use Condi in the next election as a presidential candidate. Think about it: The Bushes got their hands on Rice when she was young and impressionable. She worked for Bush senior and got to know him well before she signed up with Dubya. It is hard sometimes to believe, when one hears her at press conferences or listens to her speeches, that she is saying what she believes, but rather that she is elegantly explaining -- since he can barely do it himself -- President Bush's positions.
"He's actually influencing her," notes Lemann, "and she seems to be performing for him the immensely useful service of transforming shorthand impulses into developed stated policy. When you hear Rice speaking, that's what Bush would sound like if he were as articulate as Rice is."
So what the Dems need to do is figure out how George capitivated her and impress upon her the error of her ways. I would love to see a woman in the White House next time, but I don't think Hillary Clinton is going to make it; her heart is in the right place, but she is too divisive and her recent speech at the Economic Club of Chicago made me want to put my head down on the table and have a long nap.
Hillary does not have the rhetorical flourishes to impassion those around her.
And, Rice -- if only she could be loosened from the Bush grasp and reprogrammed to become less aloof -- would make a dandy Democratic candidate. She could even go on the David Letterman show, a la Bill Clinton and his saxophone, and play the piano.
So this is my advice to the Democrats. Recruit Rice, develop some kind of solid program we bleeding heart liberals could embrace and then, get back into the White House! Got that?
mailto:jhunter@suntimes.com
This is nothing more than very thinly veiled liberal racism. In the mind of Ms Hunter, the only way that you can be a "real" black person is to be a liberal.
Great link! Thanks!
Condi on being a Republican:
---
It is fitting that I stand before you to talk about Governor Bush's commitment to America's principled leadership in the world, because that is the legacy and tradition of our Party because our Party's principles made me a Republican.
The first Republican I knew was my father and he is still the Republican I most admire. He joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did. My father has never forgotten that day, and neither have I.
I joined for different reasons. I found a party that sees me as an individual, not as part of a group. I found a party that puts family first. I found a party that has love of liberty at its core. And I found a party that believes that peace begins with strength.
---
Sorry, that's impossible. No program "we bleeding heart liberals could embrace" could possibly be solid.
"The Bushes got their hands on Rice when she was young and impressionable."
That jumped out at me too. That's when the Dems want them and as you pointed out, had her too. She opened her eyes, at least to some degree and changed parties.
I just wish that she were a conservative.
Well said and spot on!
Let me see that again - I LOVE it!
Dems; Um excuse me....... we don't seem to have any competent contenders for president...... could we have one of yours?
Yep, the libs have it backwards...this was one of their signs at a protest in Fort Collins several months ago...
Be Seeing You,
Chris
http://www.asianage.com/main.asp?layout=2&cat1=3&cat2=34&newsid=237852&RF=DefaultMain
Kuala Lumpur, July 26 : The best-kept secret in global diplomacy is out US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice will perform a piano recital at the annual gala of Asias top security meeting, diplomats and reports said.
The Asean Regional Forum this year has a heavy agenda with conflict raging in the West Asia, a missile crisis on the Korean peninsula, and fury over Burmas refusal to embrace democratic reforms. But foreign ministers from the 26-nation grouping will have some light relief at the traditional gala dinner during which the worlds top diplomats put aside protocol and perform hilarious skits and musical routines. US secretaries have been particularly keen to poke fun at themselves, with Colin Powell belting out "YMCA" two years ago and Madeleine Albright donning bowler hat and tuxedo in a show-biz turn.
Ms Rice however a trained pianist with a famously serious demeanour is expected to perform a work from one of her favourite composers, who include Brahms and Shostakovich, the New Straits Times said.
Hmmm...come to think of it, Fred, that Utopia would exist if there were NO Liberals!!!!
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