Sometimes important people give interviews to newspapers, sometimes newspapers ask the hard questions, sometimes you get this. I will admit to having a very negative view of Condi, based primarily on her public statements and actions both as National Security Advisor and as Secretary of State. Stanford, where she served as provost, seems to have plenty of people with the same kind of view regarding her return. The Stanford Daily, Stanford's student paper, ran this headline, "Condi Eyes Return, but in What Role?” and a representative letter to the editor from Emeritus Professor of Mathematics Don Ornstein followed, "Condoleezz Rice serves an administration that has trashed the basic values of academia: reason, science, expertise, and honesty. Stanford should not welcome her back.”
The thrust of the article is that Condi sucked as NSA and is now trying to repair that as SoS. From the NYT, "Beyond trying to influence the historical record, Ms. Rice is trying hard to rewrite her legacy to include something more than Iraq. Her colleagues and friends say that she has accepted that Iraq is a stain that she probably cannot remove before she leaves office. So she has thrown herself into shoring up the rest of her legacy, zeroing in in recent months on Arab-Israeli peace, as a possible source of redemption."
Condi herself, “I don’t know; if that’s the assessment, you know, I’ll accept people’s assessment,” she said, her demeanor resigned. “The national security adviser is a great job, because you’re very close to the president; you’re working with him, but it’s also a very difficult job because everything is by remote control. You do not own any of the assets.”
It may seem a small minded quibble, but I'd point out to her that there is one asset you can always own, -yourself.
If you're real curious what she tells the NYT she thinks she's up to, follow the links. I'm afraid I didn't find this thing to be much more than a re-branded press release.
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