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EXCERPTS Later, at an evening appearance at the Aspen Institute, Rice said she and Obama "covered the waterfront." "Despite the fact there are changes and tussles, there is still a foreign policy community that believes that foreign policy ought to be bipartisan," she said. "It was really great that he reached out in that way." Rice rolled her eyes at the notion that Obama is a closet Muslim, and she defended him from criticism - led by former vice president Richard B. Cheney - that Obama has weakened the country. "Nothing in this president's methods suggests this president is other...

In a SPIEGEL interview, former United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice discusses America's fight for German reunification, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's woes at the time, Chancellor Helmut Kohl's merits and the later mistakes of his successor, Gerhard Schröder.

In an interview on NBC's "Today Show" this morning, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted she doesn't miss the pressures of her former job, adding that now, when she hears breaking news, she doesn't "have to do anything about it." "It's nice to be out of the pressure-cooker, frankly," she acknowledged to "Today" host Meredith Veiera. Rice, who was on "Today" to promote her new memoir, "Condoleezza Rice: A Memoir of My Extraordinary, Ordinary Family and Me," spoke about her childhood in Birmingham, Alabama, and defended some of the more controversial foreign policy initiatives from the Bush administration. "History...

Grand Old Partisan salutes Condoleezza Rice (R-AL), the first African-American woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State. On this day in 2000, she addressed the Republican National Convention. The highlight of her speech was explaining how her father, Rev. John W. Rice, overcame Democrat oppression: “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.” And neither should you!...

Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has endorsed former Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina in the Republican Senate primary, Fiorina’s campaign will announce today. “California needs a representative in the U.S. Senate who is prepared to make the tough decisions necessary to address our most pressing challenges, including job creation and national security. Based on my personal experience, I know Carly is the best person to send to Washington to advocate for the people of our great state in the Senate,” Rice said in a written statement. “Carly is an experienced and respected leader who has delivered results for those...

Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a Jackson crowd Tuesday night about the importance of America's role in spreading democracy globally in a speech that frequently, if not explicitly, advocated and defended Bush-era foreign policy. "The American spirit will lead the world," she said in ending her speech, which drew a standing ovation. "In its absence, the world would be a much, much worse place. ... If we're OK, everyone else will be OK, too." Rice, whose speech was part of Union University's scholarship banquet, also got applause for urging less federal involvement in the American economy, saying...

She's smart. She's experienced. She's worldly. Republican strategists worried about their party's future should take heed. ___ Successful candidates follow a simple fundamental rule: Define yourself before your opponent can define you. The Republican Party, which mustered a thumbs-up from only 38% of voters in last week's Bloomberg poll, sorely needs to brush up on the very rule it counsels in candidate-training sessions. To skeptics in search of a political home, the GOP's image has devolved into that of a minority collection of name-calling, "no"-saying, backward-looking, talk-show bullying cranks -- a definition gleefully perpetuated by Democratic pols. So next time...

Facing a world of diplomatic woes from Iran to North Korea, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had the opportunity to get some heavyweight advice at a dinner held by eight of her living predecessors. Tuesday night's private dinner at former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's Washington home gathered top U.S. diplomats from five previous administrations with decades of hands-on experience in some of the most difficult foreign policy crises America has faced. A spokeswoman for Albright says all but one living former secretary of state attended the event to honor Clinton(continued at link)

The CIA's use of waterboarding to interrogate terrorism suspects was approved by Condoleezza Rice as early as 2002, a senate report reveals. As national security adviser, Ms Rice consented to the harsh interrogation of al-Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah, the Senate Intelligence Committee found. Memos released last week show that he and another key detainee were subjected to waterboarding 266 times. Former Vice-President Dick Cheney has said the techniques produced results.

Condi was just on CNN with Wolf Blitzer. At the end of her response to his question of what she thought about Obama's election, she said "The American people are wise to want change. Two terms is enough." Wow, no one digs a horn into an embattled president's back like a rampaging RINO. How nasty and disloyal of her.

The 49ers canned head coach Mike Nolan on Monday, and apparently, it's just the beginning of a front office overhaul. The club managed just 18 wins in 55 games, and were 2-5 this season. That, along with 2005 first-overall pick Alex Smith's glacial development had just about everything to do with Nolan's current status. But this morning, NFL Network's Adam Schefter reports that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice might be interested in a job with the 49ers in the near future. "We all know that change has swept through San Francisco, but now it looks like more could be coming....

Known as the Steel Magnolia in her youth, Miss Rice has guided the US through the war on terror, looked tyrants in the eye and faced down terrorist threats during her nation's darkest hours. But a new book reveals that she was not so steadfast in facing down her own more personal enemies within the Bush administration. Instead, Miss Rice was so fazed by former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that she burst into tears at a meeting in the White House situation room. The floodgates opened for the then national security adviser in February 2004, as the Bush administration was...

While the Obama and McCain campaigns were issuing speeches and statements during the Russian invasion of Georgia, who got the cease-fire job done? Anyone, anyone? Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday signed the plan for a cease-fire in Georgia that his Georgian counterpart reluctantly agreed to a day earlier, setting the stage for a Russian troop withdrawal after more than a week of warfare. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili signed the deal Friday in Tbilisi after lengthy talks with Washington's top diplomat, Condoleezza Rice. You know a Condoleezza Rice-VP slot is not in the Democrats' best interest when the AP story...

This morning, after receiving an update from his national security team on the situation in Georgia, President Bush delivered a brief statement from the White House Rose Garden. (Transcript) The United States and our allies stand with the people of Georgia and their democratically elected government. Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected. Moscow must honor its commitment to withdraw its invading forces from all Georgian territory … The people of Georgia have cast their lot with the free world, and we will not cast them aside. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Tbilisi, Georgia today and met...

ALERT - Condoleezza Rice arrives in Tbilisi MOSCOW - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has arrived in Tbilisi Friday to affirm the support of Washington to face Georgia in Moscow, has seen an AFP journalist.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Friday shrugged off a reward for her arrest as a war criminal announced by university students ahead of a visit to New Zealand. “Protest is a part of democratic society and student protests are particularly a long honoured tradition in democratic society,” Rice told a news conference in the West Australian capital Perth. “And I can only say that the United States has done everything that it can to, in this war on terror, live up to our international and our national laws and obligations.” New Zealand university students had earlier offered a reward...

In any partnership, the coin of the realm is trust and responsibility - in other words, saying what you mean and doing what you say. In the dramatic rescue on July 2 of 15 hostages, including three Americans, held captive for many years by guerrillas and terrorists, deep in the Colombian jungles, we saw a powerful reminder that the United States has no better partner in South America than the government and people of Colombia. Colombia's leaders, especially President Uribe, had promised us that our three abducted citizens would be treated no differently than the many Colombian men and women...

Interview on the Sean Hannity Radio Show (Condoleezza Rice) (Excerpt) - SECRETARY RICE: ... First of all, this decision, this tactical decision to send Bill Burns one time to receive the reply that the Iranians are supposed to give to the offer that the United States, Russia, China, and three European states made – he’s going to go receive the reply, and he’s going to tell the Iranians, in no uncertain terms, that if they want to negotiate, the condition for doing that is to suspend verifiably their enrichment and reprocessing. So this is really to reinforce the policy that...

Lopez: How bad would a President Obama be for Israel? Why should that question matter to Americans? Glick: Senator Barack Obama would be bad for Israel most of all because he refuses to acknowledge that there is a jihad being waged against the free world. Indeed, he refuses to acknowledge that there is such a thing as an “enemy” in international affairs. And as a consequence, he is unable to understand what an ally is. As the U.S.’s most stalwart ally in the Middle East, and as the frontline state in the global jihad, Israel will likely suffer greatly if...

War On Terror: Caving to Muslim pressure groups, the Bush administration has banned the term "jihadist" to define the enemy. Islamic terrorists will now be known as "violent extremists." Our war on radical Islam has been hamstrung by political correctness from the start. First, we couldn't call the campaign to strike back at al-Qaida a "crusade" because Muslims found it historically offensive. Then we couldn't define the enemy as "Islamic terrorists" because it insulted Islam — even though it accurately described the Muslims committing murder and mayhem in the name of Islam. To appease critics, we narrowed the terminology, confining...