Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke at a breakfast Wednesday of powerful economic conservatives in Washington hosted by Grover Norquist, a lobbyist and head of Americans for Tax Reform. The appearance prompted The Huffington Post and The Washington Note to speculate that Rice is courting conservatives to position herself as a vice presidential pick of Sen. John McCain. Rice reportedly wowed the group but maintains she has no interest in staying in politics.
The Frontrunner In an interview with the Washington Times (3/28, Kralev), Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the US "still has trouble dealing with race because of a national 'birth defect' that denied black Americans the opportunities given to whites at the country's very founding." Rice told the Times that "descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that." That "birth defect," she added, "makes it hard for us to confront it, hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today." Though race has become an issue in this year's presidential campaign, Rice "declined to comment on the campaign, saying only that it was 'important' that [Barack] Obama 'gave it for a whole host of reasons.'"