I read the piece in the "New Yorker" by Nicholas Lemann, called "Without a Doubt, How the White House changed Condoleezza Rice," and found it extraordinary good. I had wondered how she came "out of nowhere", and now understand her relationship with 43. Unfortunately, it is not available online.
Yep, I agree. I tried to post it but could not find it online. Hopefully, Jochen can work his magic to find it. However, I just realized. We haven't seen Jochen around for a while.
She comes from an upperclass Atlanta, Georgia, BG, and made her way to the top in Academia,(Provost of Stanford), in spite of Degrees from minor schools. She parlayed being "Mentored" by Snowcroft and Shultz into a middle level position with 41, and then became very close to 43.
Just a bit of a correction to that brief bio you put up. She comes from Birmingham, Alabama, not Georgia; was not upperclass since that was not possible for African Americans in Birmingham in the 60s. Rather, according to Leeman, her family was two tiers from the top of African American society. One very rich family occupied the top tier; a second tier included Colin Powell's wife's family, two members of which--her father and uncle--were principles of the black schools in town. The next tier down were the Rice's. C's father worked for Alma Powell's father.
But who knows what might have happened to her had her family not moved to Denver.
I was most interested in Leeman's argument that her great skill is presentation. He goes back to her young life as a budding musical performer to note that she, every early on, learned performing skills.
She is, in his telling of the story, obviously very bright and quite driven, as well. But in my experience, if you look among the set of bright ones and driven ones, it's the ones who know how to perform, who know how to find the best mentors, those are the ones who grab a bit more power. She's obviously got all three.
The speculation about the 04 VP spot was terrific. Cheney against Rice. Great gossip material. |
