Code Pink, fearful of setbacks for women, rethinks call for U.S. troops to withdraw from Afghanistan

Known for disruptive tactics and distinctive costumes, Code Pink was founded in 2002 to oppose the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It has since broadened its reach, becoming an all-purpose protest group on issues as diverse as Wall Street's executive pay excesses and the Bush administration's Alberto Gonzales.

As for tactics, Code Pink members have been kicked out of many a congressional hearing, including one where a Code Pink protester shoved bloodied hands at Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Now the left-wing activist group is rethinking its call for a deadline to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The reason: After a week spent in Kabul talking to female Afghan leaders, the group now understands their fears that a resurgent Taliban would probably target women and girls who have made tremendous progress since U.S. troops routed the fundamentalist militant group in 2002.

"We have been feeling a sense of fear of the people of the return of the Taliban," Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin said in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor. "So many people are saying that if the U.S. troops left, the country would collapse. ... A palpable sense of fear that is making us start to reconsider" a deadline for troop withdrawal.

Code Pink says it continues to oppose sending fresh troops to Afghanistan and will advocate for more humanitarian funding. What might get relaxed is its call for an immediate pullout. "We would leave with the same parameters of an exit strategy, but we might perhaps be more flexible about a timeline," said Benjamin.

With President Obama weighing Gen. Stanley McChrystal's call for 40,000 more U.S. troops, the White House, often decried by Republicans as a hotbed of liberalism, could find itself with more allies on the right on this issue than on the left.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for one has signaled her reluctance to send new troops, saying recently, "I don't think there is a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan, in the country or in Congress."

But Code Pink's latest think could suggest that Democrats will give Obama a bit of room to maneuver on the issue.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: Charles Dharapak / Associated Press

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Condi Rice supports Obama on necessity of Afghan war

After the 2008 presidential election, a funny thing happened on the way to the good war.

That's the one in Afghanistan, which Democratic candidate Barack Obama argued was the real central front in the war on terror that Republicans had lost sight of with their military distraction in the bad war in Iraq.

However, now that it comes time to prosecute the good war with a new Obama-like strategy, possibly more troops and certainly more casualties, many of his Democratic friends on the left are having third thoughts. Poll support for the war is waning sharply.

Here's the irony. The Republican Party, which happy Harry Reid likes to call the party of "no," is fast becoming the only group of folks who are saying yes to the Democratic president on Afghanistan.

On national security grounds naturally and, of course, you don't hear the president talking much about this silent alliance with his party's political opponents because, well, he's gonna need all of his own folks to pass this healthcare reform business you may have heard a little about in recent months.

Forbes' Nina Easton had a good interview the other day with Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush's former national security advisor and secretary of State, who unlike ex-VP Dick Cheney has been pretty quiet in recent months back at Stanford.

But with congressional Democrats starting to mumble the W word -- withdrawal -- Rice didn't mince words.

"The last time we left Afghanistan, and we abandoned Pakistan," Rice says, "that territory became the very territory on which Al Qaeda trained and attacked us on Sept. 11. So our national security interests are very much tied up in not letting Afghanistan fail again and become a safe haven for terrorists.

"It's that simple. If you want another terrorist attack in the U.S., abandon Afghanistan."

As for recent mounting criticism of the Afghan regime and election, Rice noted, "Our democracy wasn't so perfect at the beginning either. My ancestors were three-fifths of a man."

Although Republicans could use a fresh face, no sign of interest from Rice in seeking elected office -- yet.

However, if there was any doubt in anyone's mind over the 2012 presidential intentions of ex-Gov. Mitt Romney, they were dispelled the other day with a simple e-mail to supporters from Romney's Free and Strong America PAC.

It announced the opening of a PAC store chockfull of political campaign doodads and paraphernalia about Romney, including, just in time for fall, a Romney PAC fleece pullover, caps and buttons ("Stimulate the Economy, Not the Government").

So that's settled.

Also new on the market -- no doubt in response to overwhelming demand --is the Rep. Joe Wilson action talking doll (see photo). He actually says, "You lie!" Perfect for your next cocktail party political debate.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Condoleezza Rice with Joe Biden and Obama in 2008. Credit: Associated Press

My days covering Tiger Woods: By Condoleezza Rice, sports reporter

As the 66th secretary of State in American history and the first African American woman in that office, Condoleezza Rice trekked around the world and confronted intractable diplomatic troubles with various people.

Or was it various troubles with intractable people?

Anyway, the onetime aspiring concert pianist is free at least from government bureaucracy and able to pursue other passions.

She's always been an avid sports fan, having attended Super Bowls, the NCAA Final Four basketball playoffs and that game like ping-pong, only on clay. She once said her idea of the ideal job would be commissioner of the National Football League.

Talk about intractable owners.

But this past weekend, according to her, was the best sports event ever, as the Stanford political science professor and fellow at the Hoover Institution covered Tiger Woods at the Masters for the DailyBeast.com.

Her first-person account is here.

Suffice it to say, she had a grand time. And Rice quickly learned that you don't really follow Tiger on the course. You are instead swept along in a mass of TW fandom.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Note: Rice's first name was misspelled as Condoleeza in the first paragraph and in the headline in an earlier version of this posting.

Photo: TheDailyBeast.com

Condi Rice loves Led Zeppelin and not being secretary of State

Stop the presses! Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice still reads newspapers! And she said it on TV.

And when she wakes up each morning now back in the Bay Area, Rice tells Jay Leno on tonight's "Tonight Show" on NBC, she's absolutely delighted to know she doesn't need to do anything about anything that's in it. (For our East Coast readers, if you hurry, you can still catch the entire interview.)

Jay expressed surprise. (See the video on the jump.)

"It was an honor to serve," Rice replied. "I love this country. There is nothing like being able to do this. And I know that people talk about America’s not this and America’s not that, but I’ll tell you something. Without America in the world, the most powerful country, but also the most compassionate country, the freest country, the world would be a much, much worse place. So I was grateful to be a part of that."

A former concert pianist, Rice says her favorite music is, what? She listens to it every time she's on the elliptical: "Then I can really be with Led Zeppelin."

But how did she go from music studies to becoming George W. Bush's foreign policy mentor, national security advisor and secretary of State? "I studied piano from age 3. I could read music before I could read, and my grandmother taught me to play the piano.... I went off to school and studied piano as a music major for a couple of years. And then I went off to the Aspen Music Festival, in the summer of my sophomore year.  And I met 12-year-olds who played from sight everything that had taken me all year to learn.

"And I thought, 'OK. You’re gonna end up teaching 13-year-olds ... Beethoven, or maybe you’ll play a piano bar or maybe you’ll play at Nordstrom, but you’re not playing Carnegie Hall. Find another career path.' ”

So she wandered into the international politics class of a man named Joseph Korbel, whose daughter turned out to be Madeline Albright, the first female secretary of State before Rice became No. 2 and Hillary Clinton No. 3.

Rice took the same path as her former boss, Bush, did in a recent speech in Canada, as The Ticket reported, declining to comment on the new Barack Obama administration. "My view is we got to do it our way," Rice says. "We did our best. We did some things well, some things not so well. Now, they get their chance. 

"And I agree with the president [Bush]. We owe them our loyalty and our silence while they do it.  Because I know what it’s like to have people chirping at you when they perhaps don’t know what’s going on inside. These are quality people. I know them.  They love the country. And they won’t make the same decisions, perhaps, that we did.  But I believe they’ll do what they think is best for the country, and I’ll give my advice privately and keep it to myself."

Scroll down or click on the "Read more" line to watch a brief video.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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[Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly spelled Joseph Korbel as Joseph Corbell.]

Photo: Paul Drinkwater / NBC

First, Cheney, then GW Bush, now Condoleezza Rice re-emerges

Programming Note:

Set your TiVo for Jay Leno again. Tuesday night. Condoleezza Rice. NBC's "The Tonight Show."

She was President George W. Bush's secretary of State, second African American in a row he appointed to that important job. Hillary Clinton has the assignment now. Third woman in Foggy Bottom.

Last weekend she was invited to speak to an NFL owners' meeting. According to the Associated Press, she said, "I am prepared to answer any questions on Russia, the Middle East, advice for the draft, the zone blitz. And why no one should ever run a prevent defense."

For Bush, Rice was his foreign policy mentor and first female national security advisor. She's a kind of renaissance woman. Could have been an accomplished professional concert pianist. Gone back to Stanford. Wants to write books. Denies political plans.

Then goes on Jay. Hopefully, she'll play something with Kevin and the band.

Memo: Don't talk about special bowling.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Kevin Wolf / Associated Press

H/T Mark Silva in the Swamp.

Latest Condi Rice job rumor: PAC-10 commissioner? Uh, no

Here's something refreshing:

For the last year or so, Condoleezza Rice has been mentioned for numerous high-profile jobs. As President George W. Bush's second consecutive African American secretary of State, the Alabama native and longtime California resident was mentioned as:

A Senate candidate from California.

A California gubernatorial candidate.

John McCain's vice presidential running mate.

Commissioner of the National Football League.

And, now, commissioner of the PAC-10 to replace Tom Hansen, who retires July 1 after 26 years in the job?

It could make sense. Rice is a passionate sports fan and fitness buff and was actively involved in collegiate athletics as the provost at Stanford before becoming Bush's foreign policy advisor in 1999.

She's said publicly that NFL commissioner would be the ideal job. She's also said she intends to return to teaching at Stanford and write about her parents and thoughts on education reform. And, you think President Obama is a fitness addict, Rice's staff at the State Department knew very well to plan workout time into her impossible schedules every day, even overseas.

Now comes word from a Rice staffer that, while honored with the flurry of attention over published mentions of the possible new athletic job, she indeed intends to return to teaching and writing in Palo Alto.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Credit: Fitness magazine.

Condoleezza Rice regrets there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq

In an appearance on ABC's "The View" this morning, just-departed secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she regretted that faulty intelligence had reported that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but had no regrets that U.S. troops toppled dictator Saddam Hussein from power.

Rice announced recently that she hopes to return to Stanford University as a political science professor after eight controversial years in the Bush administration -- first as national security adviser and then as secretary of State.

She demurred on questions about whether she voted for Barack Obama, the first African American elected president, although the day after the election she expressed pride, as a black American, that the nation had reached that milestone.



Rice defended George W. Bush against charges that the federal response to Hurricane Katrina was flawed because Bush didn't want to help the black victims:

What really did make me angry was the implication that some people made that somehow President Bush allowed this to happen because these people were black. And for somebody to say that about the president of the United States, a president of the United States who I know well and a president of the United States who is my friend, I was appalled and I couldn't believe people didn't challenge it.

But Rice, taking pride in the administration's relief aid for Africa, conceded that Katrina was "for my mind, one of the greatest disasters for the administration and for the country."

-- Johanna Neuman

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Photo: Ross Swanborough / Associated Press