Condi Rice compliments Barack Obama on race speech

Condoleezza Rice says she isn't running for any political office. Not yet, skeptical observers might add.

But the candid secretary of State and former national security advisor and onetime top Stanford University administrator says it was a good time for the nation to hear that speech on race that Democratic Sen. Barack Obama delivered the other day in Philadelphia.

Rice, who is the top-ranking African American in the Bush administration and viewed by many as a potential Republican candidate for vice president, tells the Washington Times that she watched Obama's speech with interest.

"I think it was important that he gave it for a whole host of reasons," Rice said in a transcript released by the State Department.

While saying she did not want to discuss the election campaign -- "I don't do politics," she repeated, although she was intimately involved in policy development for Bush's 1999-2000 presidential campaign -- she also reiterated her lack of interest in the vice presidential slot.

She said the United States had a hard time dealing with racial issues. She called it a "birth defect."

"There is a paradox for this country and a contradiction of this country and we still haven't resolved it," she said in a detailed reply to questions about Obama and race issues as a whole. "But what I would like understood as a black American ...

is that black Americans loved and had faith in this country even when this country didn't love and have faith in them, and that's our legacy."

Rice said her own father, grandmother and great-grandmother had endured "terrible humiliations" growing up in the segregated South and yet they still loved America.

Rice, whose original career plans involved being a music major and concert pianist, said that she was "not interested" in the vice presidential job and that when the Bush administration ends Jan. 20, she planned to return to her home in California, where she served as provost at Stanford.

"It's time for new blood," Rice said.

On the other hand, inquiring minds wonder, if she's leaving Washington and retiring to California outside of politics and public policy in 10 months' time, why is she taking time away from the State Department on the eve of another important Mideast trip and bothering to meet with the editorial board of the conservative Washington Times to talk about public policy?

And why, according to various rumors and reports on other blogs, was she recently seen attending the weekly session of conservative Washington power brokers presided over by anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist?

The off-the-record Wednesday sessions are a kind of informal credentialing process for those interested in Republican politics and introducing themselves and their thoughts to the capital's conservative establishment, some of whom harbor doubts about the winner of the 2008 GOP presidential nomination.

If that newly minted Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, follows political tradition, he'll be choosing a vice presidential running mate -- and a conservative one -- here in the next several months to help him run against a Democratic ticket most likely headed by either an African American or a woman. Conceivably, the Democratic ticket could include both.

Oh, look! Condi Rice, as it happens, is already both. She's also already a Republican, born in the South and more recently from California, the state with the largest number of electoral votes that hasn't voted for a Republican presidential ticket in a generation.

We're not saying. We're just saying.

-- Andrew Malcolm and Mark Silva

Mark Silva writes for the Swamp of the Chicago Tribune's Washington Bureau.

Comments

[Billary]

I feel there will be an "office" waiting for her at Gitmo in the future.

[Anna from Canada]

She is so wrong. If anyone talks about "BIRTH DEFECT" it must be referred to the continent (the Americas) stolen from the First Nation Peoples. No matter when or how we came: as masters or slaves, as immigrants or refugees, we are now all walking, building houses and institutions on stolen land.

Making this history an issues of who were the founding people i.e.: blacks and whites its outrageously wrong. The reality is that the struggle that is going on right now between blanks and whites has nothing to do with race-relations in this continent, it is nothing else but a struggle for economic power and control over stolen land. Period.

Respectfully

Anna

(not a native person, but, as everybody else, someone who is also walking on stolen land)

[Sean K]

Anna from Canada: You are trying way too hard to think. This issue has absolutely nothing to do with Native Americans. Yes, their land was 'stolen' (keeping in mind that if tribes had no concept of land ownership, it wasn't exactly 'stolen' since no one can own it in the first place... a more accurate term would be 'unethically and illegitimately appropriated'). Yes, the Native Americans were treated horribly. How on earth does that undercut the importance of race relations between black and whites in this country? Confused gibberish like this just makes liberals look 'flaky'.

[Laurel West]

The only reason this close race is hurting the party is that Senator Clinton,and her husband and her staff, fight dirty--attacks come from all sides, personal, racial, exaggerational, fictional....Once the words are out there, they do damage, even after they've been proven totally wrong.

SHE is hurting the party, not a close race. And playing the beat-up little girl in the fight is hilarious, no pun intended. She is also now sucking money out of the congressional Democratic races.

I think she is a great Senator, but her bid for the White House has degenerated to just Dirty Tricks, and the "Whatever It Takes" approach.

[adams]

THE HARD COLD FACT THAT WE AS A NATION MUST FACE, IS THAT AFTER YEARS OF SUPPRESSION BLACKS ARE RACIST THEY ARE VOTING OBAMA AT 90% DO THE MATH!

ITS PATHETIC OBAMA USED THE RACE CARD SO MANY TIMES BECAUSE HE DOES'NT HAVE MUCH EXPERIENCE TO SHARE WITH US !

DONT LET OBAMA HAND MCCAIN THE WHITE HOUSE! HILLARY 08 VOTE TO WIN THINK

[Michelle]

It's good to see bipartisan understanding of the larger context surrounding the Wright controversy.
http://acropolisreview.com/2008/03/video-barack-obamas-philadelphian-unity.html

[Mike13833]

"...But the candid secretary of State and former..."
"Candid"? What are you guys smokin'?

As for any candidacy , she may have learned enough to actually do the job, but there's too much Iraq crud, and the associated lies, sticking to her. Nope! No sale.

[Jeugenen]

REAGAN CONSERVATIVES AND KENNEDY LIBERALS JOIN FORCES

In this wonderful presidential battle of the American Cultural War, Reagan Conservatives and Kennedy Liberals are joining forces to fight for their Christian culture and Republican Constitution, against the combined crypto-Neo-Marxist forces of the Podhoretz Neo-Conservatives and Leiberman Neo-Liberals, by supporting Liberal Obama against Neo-Liberal Princess Hillary and Neo-Conservative Insane McCain.

The World is watching and cheering for Obama. It is the Dawn of the American Reformation that will end of the Era of the Ugly American Neo-Con/Neo-Lib military interventionist governments.

[Richard Williams]

Rezko received a $3.5 million loan from London-based IRAQI billionaire Nadhmi Auchi -- a loan that was later forgiven in exchange for shares in a prime slice of Chicago real estate. Rezko gave $700,000 of the money to his wife and used the rest to pay legal bills and funnel cash to various supporters."

These Funds from Auchi's loan helped finance a complex series of transactions between Rezko and Democratic Presidential candidate Illinois Senator Barack Obama involving the 2005 purchase of Obama's Chicago mansion and Rezko's purchase of an adjoining landlocked parcel.

Rezko claims he paid “full market price” and Obama apparently received a “discount” of several hundred thousand dollars for his parcel. Rezko then improved his parcel to benefit Obama.

Instead of handing cash to Obama, Rezko handed Obama a preferential price for property. This is the same form of “honest graft” and preferential treatment that sent former Illinois Governor Otto Kerner to jail over 30 years ago, see United States v. Isaacs, 493 F.2d 1124 (7th Cir. 1974).

The Chicago Sun-Times recently reported that Mr. Rezko, around the same general period he was wheeling with Obama, also provided a preferential price for a property purchase by U. S. Representative Luis Gutierrez.

Instead of transferring cash to buy influence, Rezko was engaging in structured property transactions and preferential treatment of public officials to confer significant financial benefits on them, far above the legal limits of any legitimate political contribution permitted by federal law.

Thanks to the release of Barack Obama's income tax records, we are finally able to get some necessary perspective on the big favor Tony Rezko did for the Obamas in buying what has been termed in the press "the adjacent, undeveloped lot". It turns out this is a seriously misleading description.
Rather than merely purchasing a separate lot, Rezko appears to have purchased the yard of the Obama manse, and allowed them to live in the house+yard property, amounting to a gift (or loan, if you will) of considerable value.

The Obamas' tax returns from 2000-2005 had personal information blanked out, but strangely enough, the 2006 Form 1040 left in the home address.

Mr. Tony Rezko who owns a slum landlord business in inner city Chicago is under indictment in Illinois for seeking to extort money from potential state vendors.

The feds allege that Mr. Rezko was able to steer state contracts and policy decisions, such as authorization to build hospitals in specific locations, because he was so close to Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (for whom he was a top fundraiser) and because he was willing to share the graft with his cronies

Rezko's connection to Obama began well before Obama ran for office. Rezko spotted him early, figured he might be a rising star, and helped secure funds for his initial campaigns. As a major mob figure, Rezko's role raises questions because no one has ever accused him of being a civic-minded fellow who simply enjoys political fundraising because he delights in good government. Skeptical souls want to know what Rezko sought in return for his support and whether he got it?

IRAQI billionaire Nadhmi Auchi stills lives in London.

[David Cherbonnier]

European Media has given Obama favorable coverage while graciously down playing Hilliary Clinton's gaffes that presage the embarrassment she will be for the country should she be elected. How difficult is it to produce previously prepared tax records? Do they require vetting or modification prior to disclosure? This isn't the first time she's not been able to produce documents when requested.

I find it sad that Bill Clinton's reputation will become another victim of her audacious ambition. Most of the country had forgotten the media negatives of his terms, instead discovered the soft, thinking side as personified on Oprah. That image is gone now and replaced by another less attractive than the original.

She started the Campaign as a well funded, shoo-in, with the party solidly behind her. She's cried for votes and fantasized her experience, continuing street fighting, oblivious to any needs other than her own. Is this the role model we want for the next Administration?

[Archie Haase]

Ms. Rice is an embarrassment to US foreign policy equal to George W Bush . I am sure someone said someplace she has the personality of a card board cut out when it comes to explaining the tragic hazardous religious/corporatists neocon republican foreign policy to world leaders.

She needs to go back to the University system and teach like that other -- What was her name Jean Kirkpatrick?

I cannot believe people are talking about her as a vice presidential candidate, but they are, and to use a term of a Texas senator , “She aint not Barack Obama”.

[section9]

Condi's comments place her squarely in the middle of the American electorate, exactly, btw, where McCain wants to be. He's running exactly as Nixon did in 1968, a Center Campaign. By the time Hillary's Scorched Earth Campaign is done, McCain/Rice will be as good as elected.

Obama's Dog and Pony show can only go on for so long. After all, why should Clinton bow out. Barone's analysis is dead on-Clinton will go to Denver with the most popular votes. She should be the nominee, not Barack.

[Jack's Son]

It looks like the democrats are again forming their presidential attack group designed to organize all the slime they can formulate against the Repubilcan candidate and his faithfull party.

I remember the Democrats efforts to organize and maximize negatives that George Bush had.They did a thorough and effective job with their constant barrage and messages on TV and radio programs which had never been used before to make a Rebublican or Democratic President appear as dimwitted and or traitor.

Now the democrats are going through their nomination of a candidate to best represent their party not necessarily our great country.Or at least it seems that way.