Free Republic

The leader in the race to replace retiring U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in America’s most liberal state is… Republican Condoleezza Rice, according to a new Field Poll released Wednesday. Rice, the former Secretary of State and Stanford don, is backed by 49% of voters–ahead of Attorney General Kamala Harris, the liberal Democrat who was the first to declare. The poll, which sampled 972 likely voters in California, presented respondents with a list of 18 potential candidates and asked if they “would be inclined or not inclined to vote for that person,” with no limit on the number they could...

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has backed out of delivering the commencement address at Rutgers University following protests by some faculty and students over her role in the Iraq War. Rice said in a statement Saturday that she informed Rutgers President Robert Barchi that she was declining the invitation to speak at the graduation. "Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families," Rice said. "Rutgers' invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time." The school's board of governors had voted to pay $35,000...

Internet activists are at it again. Following yesterday’s news regarding the appointment of Condoleezza Rice, former United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, to the board of cloud storage and syncing service Dropbox, a petition has sprung up online, demanding that users tell Dropbox they’re opposed to this move, and threaten to leave the service if Rice isn’t removed from the board. The appointment was not met without controversy, of course, as Rice’s position in the Bush administration saw her commenting on Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, which played a role in the U.S. deciding to...

"The conservative minds of the Heritage Foundation have found a way for Republicans to shrink the gender gap: They need to persuade more women to get their MRS degrees." So wrote the Washington Post's Dana Milbank about a panel that featured Mollie Hemingway, Karin Agness and yours truly. It was so nice of Milbank to attend -- a shame that his mind was so clenched shut that he could hear only what his prejudices led him to expect, rather than what we actually said. Hate to interrupt a good sneer, but the panel wasn't about the gender gap; it was...

Michele Bachmann’s decision last week to leave Congress at the end of this term silences the Republican’s best-known female voice on the national political stage. It’s not a secret that her undisciplined style made her unpopular with the party’s leadership. But with women making up just 8 percent of the Republican majority in the House, Bachmann’s Tea Party populism, her run for the White House and her wide-eyed, often inaccurate claims, still made her a GOP stand out. At the moment, the best-known Republican woman at the national level has never run for office – that’s former Secretary of State...

Racism: The once-proud NAACP has dissed a new African-American Republican senator as a token who knows nothing about civil rights because, well, he's a Republican — unlike, say, Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Act. NAACP President Ben Jealous made the claim Wednesday concerning Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. — the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction and the first black GOP senator since 1979, when Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts retired. Indeed, Scott is only the seventh African-American ever to serve in the chamber. Jealous based his claim on Scott receiving an "F" on an NAACP scorecard of...

For the first time EVER, the Augusta National Golf Club -- home of The Masters -- has admitted a woman as a member ... and the honor went to Condoleezza Rice!! Augusta -- located in Georgia -- had been a woman-free zone since it opened for business in 1933 ... and only started allowing black men into the club in 1990. Seriously, 1990. But this morning Augusta announced it had invited the former Secretary of State, along with South Carolina businesswoman Darla Moore, to join the club. Rice is an avid golfer. Guess they'll have to build a new locker...

Today, the political world is abuzz over speculation that former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is the frontrunner to be named as Mitt Romney’s running mate on the GOP ticket. Rice is a talented and impressive woman, who would bring an interesting mix of experience and intellect to the ticket. After her service in the George W. Bush administration, Rice removed herself from the political spotlight and has been serving as a professor at Stanford University the last few years.

**Exclusive** Late Thursday evening, Mitt Romney's presidential campaign launched a new fundraising drive, 'Meet The VP' -- just as Romney himself has narrowed the field of candidates to a handful, sources reveal. And a surprise name is now near the top of the list: Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice! The timing of the announcement is now set for 'coming weeks'. MORE It was Condi who received two standing ovations at Romney's Utah retreat a few weeks ago, and everyone left with her name on their lips. Rice made an extended argument for American leadership in the world.

Over the last few days, since Romney clinched the GOP nomination for President by going over the 1,144 committed delegates needed with his win in the Texas Primary on Tuesday, May 29, 2012, a number of new endorsements have come in for Romney's bid for the Presidency. These include George Shultz, former Secretary of State; Condoliza Rice, former Secretrary of State and National Security Advisor; Mike Huckabee, former Governor of Arkansas and presidential candidate; and Nancy Reagan, wife of President Ronald Reagan. Here's what each of them had to say on the date they endorsed Romney: NANCY REAGAN endorses Mitt...

After rebels ransacked the compound of Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli last week, they discovered an uncanny photo album filled with pictures of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The album was shown to Rice — who Gaddafi fondly referred to as his “darling black African woman” — during a 2008 diplomatic visit to Libya. Former State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told The Daily Caller that the former Libyan dictator whipped out the album during a private meeting with Rice. Rice didn’t talk about the episode to her staff until she had boarded her flight out of Libya.

When you’re the single, attractive secretary of state for the United States, you’re bound to pick up groupies in all corners of the international diplomatic scene. But for Condoleezza Rice, who has charmed diplomats from Rome (the Italian foreign minister, Massimo D’Alema) to London (Foreign Minister Jack Straw of Britain) to Pictou, Nova Scotia (the Canadian diplo-hunk Peter McKay), perhaps the strangest of all has always been Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya. “Leezza, Leezza, Leezza … I love her very much,” Colonel Qaddafi, the now-fugitive Libyan leader, told Al Jazeera in 2007, calling her his “darling black African woman.” When...

... And a photo album filled with images of Condoleezza Rice. Huh? Apparently, the infamous Libyan leader's fondness for Rice was well-known -- according to the Washington Post, he told Al-Jazeera in 2007: "I support my darling black African woman. I admire and am very proud of the way she leans back and gives orders to the Arab leaders ... Leezza, Leezza, Leezza. ... I love her very much. I admire her and I'm proud of her because she's a black woman of African origin." Well, isn't that nice.

INDIANAPOLIS -- When the Indiana Republican Party found itself in a bind this spring, unable to lock down a high-profile keynote speaker for its big annual fundraising dinner, it was Gov. Mitch Daniels himself who came up with the solution: He'd get his wife, Cheri, to do it. It was a bold move, considering that she had never given a high-profile speech before and generally has been reluctant to step onto the political stage. At the same time, her husband has been pondering a 2012 presidential bid (pondering it for the better part of 18 months, in fact) and the...

You want to watch Lawrence O'Donnell get pummeled on his own show...as he has long deserved. [Video HERE] Key part of the interview? When Rice destroys O'Donnell's assertion that Iraq did not have a significant broad based coalition. The underlying inference was that the coalition was multiple times larger than the one now involved in Libya. RICE: You have just made a false statement. You said that we couldn’t assemble a coalition. How many countries fought in the coalition in Iraq? O’DONNELL: Actually fought and had casualties? Actually fought? RICE: Yeah, how many. O’DONNELL: Maybe half a dozen actually fought....

Condi's speech in Cairo 2005 is an American Classic! Compare this to zer-O's Cairo speech. http://www.verumserum.com/?p=20976

The question on everyone’s mind: Why didn’t the United States do more to prevent the progress of North Korea’s uranium-enrichment program? Regrettably, the answer to this question is even more disconcerting than the disclosure itself. Intelligence amassed over the course of nearly two decades on North Korea’s uranium-enrichment program has been an inconvenient truth for most U.S. officials involved in North Korea policy through consecutive U.S. political administrations — but nowhere was this delusion in more abundance than in the latter years of the George W. Bush administration, in which I served as the director for counterproliferation strategy, covering North...

The joint performance here of Aretha Franklin and Condoleezza Rice could be described as being driven by the political concept of "equal time." Ms. Franklin's most visible recent appearance was singing "My Country 'Tis of Thee" at the Obama inaugural, so it's only fair that she should sing it again in the company of a prominent Republican. ~snip~ This once-in-a-lifetime collaboration occurred Tuesday night at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Fairmount Park, where Ms. Franklin and Ms. Rice each performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra and, briefly, together. ...~snip~... both artists donated their services. ~snip~ Ms. Rice (whose...

As Defense Secretary Gates tours our missile defense site at Fort Greely, Alaska, Gov. Sarah Palin calls for restoration of the missile defense cuts. Meanwhile, North Korea points another missile at the U.S. Robert Gates' visit to our missile defense facility at Fort Greely on Monday was a pointed reminder to the North Koreans that while we have been talking softly, we still have a few big sticks in the ground ready to turn the North Korean missile program into so much scrap metal.

US President George W. Bush's foreign policies may be unpopular in the Middle East, but Arab leaders showered his top diplomat with jewelry worth far more than a quarter of a million dollars last year. While Bush himself didn't fare nearly as well, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raked in at least $316,000 in gem-encrusted baubles from the kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia alone, making her one of top recipients among US officials of gifts from foreign heads of state and government and their aides in 2007. In January, Jordan's King Abdullah II gave Rice an emerald and...