It's Official....Rice for Sec. of State!

[Drbio]

Condoleezza Rice to Be Named Secretary of State
National Security Adviser Is Bush's Choice to Replace Powell

Nov. 15, 2004 — National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, one of President Bush's closest counselors, will be nominated to replace Colin Powell as secretary of state, ABC News has learned.

Senior administration sources confirmed that Rice would be Bush's choice. The news comes just hours after the White House announced Powell had submitted his resignation.

ABC News has also learned that Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley will likely replace Rice as national security adviser.

Powell submitted his resignation on Friday, though his departure was not announced until today.

The retired four-star general was known for his moderate views and for clashing with members of the administration on the issue of Iraq. Even so, it was Powell who went before the United Nations in February of 2003 to make a case for the U.S.- led invasion of Iraq.

Rice, if confirmed by the Senate, will take over the job of international diplomat during a war that has divided the nation and the world.


A Stellar Academic Career

The new post comes as a sort of birthday present for Rice, who turned 50 on Sunday.

Rice was the first female U.S. national security adviser. She would be only the second woman and second African-American to be appointed secretary of state.

Born and raised in segregated Birmingham, Ala., Rice was the child of two educators. After her father took a job in Denver, Rice decided to take college courses while still in high school. She was just 19 years old when she graduated from the University of Denver.

Although she was initially interested in music, Rice began studying the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. She earned her master's degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and received her doctorate from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981. In 1981 she began teaching at Stanford University, where she would later serve six years as provost.

In 1989, the first President Bush's national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, helped convince her to leave Stanford and work for him in Washington. She quickly became one of George H.W. Bush's most trusted advisers. From 1989 through March 1991, the period of German reunification and the final days of the Soviet Union, she served in the first Bush administration as director and then senior director of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and a special assistant to the president for national security affairs.

[dude1394]

I'm sort of ambivalent about this choice. I'm not the greatest condi fan, I wasn't that impressed with her testimony this year at congress although she obviously is in-tune with the prez.

[Chiwas]

[MavKikiNYC]

Originally posted by: Chiwas

Madeline Albright was busy.

[madape]

boo-yeah! Go Condi!

[Mavdog]

I'm not sure she deserves a promotion. The reviews of her current job performance haven't been completed.

[MavKikiNYC]

Originally posted by: Mavdog
I'm not sure she deserves a promotion. The reviews of her current job performance haven't been completed.

I believe they were submitted on 2 November.

[dude1394]

Originally posted by: MavKikiNYC

I believe they were submitted on 2 November.

chuckle

[FishForLunch]

Anyone is better than Albright

[Drbio]

Originally posted by: MavKikiNYC

I believe they were submitted on 2 November.

Genius!


That above was just more sour grapes from the forum whiner.

[Chiwas]

A newspaper here put it clear: "we are already missing Powell".

My guess: Iran and Syria the next targets. (Not North Korea, she is smart)

Hurra!

[Drbio]

Your news source is flawed. You should try another. Condi will do just fine and as much as I obviously liked Powell, she is a more than capable replacement.

[FishForLunch]

Great to know that she is a Football Fan. She is Browns Fan though [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SECRET LIFE OF AMERICA'S MOST POWERFUL WOMAN

By MARSHA KRANES

November 17, 2004 -- The world knows Condoleezza Rice as President Bush's smart, soft-spoken, high-energy, no-nonsense national security adviser — a workaholic who is always at his side in the White House or on vacations at his Texas ranch.
But there's a lesser-known side to the only child born to black educators in segregated Birmingham, Ala. — the A student whose parents told her that "even though I couldn't have a hamburger at Woolworth's, I could be president of the United States."

For one thing, she's almost as compulsive about shopping and her appearance as she is about her work.

"I love to shop," the nation's most powerful woman, and the only size 6 national security adviser in U.S. history, once told an interviewer.

She noted that on Sundays, after dutifully appearing on the morning talk-show circuit, "don't be surprised if you see me at the mall."

Rice, who just turned 50, enjoys showing off her slim figure in classic bold-colored suits — generally cut slightly above the knee. She rarely wears prints.

She also likes jewelry — simple gold jewelry — and once bristled when a sales clerk in an expensive shop pulled out a drawer of costume jewelry when she asked to see gold.

She's recounted more than once how she told the clerk, "Let's get one thing straight. You're behind the counter because you have to work for $6 an hour. I'm on this side asking to see the good jewelry because I make considerably more."

Of her angry reaction, she's said, "It's something that has probably happened to every black person at some point in time. You're not treated as if you are actually a customer. My view is, you just don't let that sort of thing go by at all."

To keep in shape, the former competitive ice skater exercises daily. She does that by getting up by 5 a.m. and hitting the treadmill while watching the news on TV.



"Exercise is a very high priority for me, especially if you don't have children who are a break on working all the time . . . I do some of my best thinking on a treadmill," Rice once said.

After eating breakfast — either a bagel or a bowl of cereal — in her sparsely furnished Watergate apartment, she heads for the White House, where she briefs the president and gets down to work.

With no family of her own, her time off is often spent at her boss' side at Camp David or his Crawford ranch. But they don't just talk foreign affairs — they pray together and watch TV together. Usually sports.

"Sports is a big element in my life. Football, hockey, basketball, sumo wrestling — anything with a score. I love the competition," she once said.

Her favorite sport is pro football; her favorite team, the Cleveland Browns.

Very private about her personal life, the only eligible man she's been seen with in public is former San Francisco 49er wide receiver Gene Washington, now the NFL's director of operations.

The two have gone together to football games, where he rates the best seats, and to state dinners, where she rates the best table.

Rice, who is single, and Washington, a father of two who's separated from his wife, insist they are not an item. They say they're just good friends who've known each other for 20 years — ever since both were at Stanford University, she as provost, he as assistant athletic director.

They dated briefly and remain friends, according to Rice biographer Antonia Felix. But one buddy has described Washington as Rice's "long-term boyfriend."

Of their relationship, Washington, 58, has said, "We're comfortable with each other and we enjoy each other, and we enjoy each other's company. She can relax with me. We've known each other for so long, she doesn't have to break me in."

In addition to one another's company, the two share Birmingham backgrounds and a passion for football. In fact, Rice has said she hopes one day to be commissioner of the NFL.

Washington notes that Rice often compares football to war, explaining that to her "football is about taking ground. The idea is to take more ground than you give up."

He gushes when he speaks of her: "Condi's phenomenal. She's so articulate, she never gets ruffled, she can handle tough situations with aplomb, she is as impressive a person as you'd ever meet."

Away from work, Rice tries to get in an hour of practice on the piano daily, and plays in a string quartet on weekends.

She's so accomplished at the keyboard that she performed a duet with famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 2002 when he received at National Medal of the Arts.

She had planned to play the piano professionally — and was studying piano performance at the University of Denver — until she realized she didn't have the right stuff to succeed.

She was searching for another major when she was heard a lecture on Joseph Stalin given by Czech refugee scholar Josef Korbel — the father of the first woman secretary of state, Madeleine Albright — and decided on the spot to major in political science.

That led to a doctorate and distinguished academic career in foreign affairs. She landed a job in 1989 in the first Bush White House as director of Soviet and East European affairs on the National Security Council. After leaving office in 1993, she served for six years as provost of Stanford University.

She first met George W. Bush in 1995 when she was in Texas visiting his father and he was the state's newly elected governor. Their conversation then was about a shared passion — sports.

She met Bush again in 1998, when he was eyeing the White House, during a visit to the senior Bush's summer vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine.

"In between tennis games and going out on the boat and sitting out on the back porch we would have conversations about foreign policy challenges that would face the next president," she said in an interview.

But those talks weren't lazy seaside chats — Rice usually ran on a treadmill while Bush worked out on a glider skiing machine.

[kingrex]

Originally posted by: Mavdog
I'm not sure she deserves a promotion. The reviews of her current job performance haven't been completed.

She's being rewarded for her loyalty to Administration.

[Epitome22]

Originally posted by: kingrex

She's being rewarded for her loyalty to Administration.

[Drbio]

I guess epitome agrees. She's earned the position and is being rewarded for a job well done.

[kingrex]

Originally posted by: Drbio
I guess epitome agrees. She's earned the position and is being rewarded for a job well done.

She has more than just towed the company line.