Condi

I got my picture taken with Condoleezza Rice today. It was pretty cool. I succeeded in impressing Sammie, which is quite an accomplishment. She thinks it needs to be my profile picture, on Facebook I guess. I'll post it here when I get it from the university. Presuming someone at the university can figure out who that low-level person is who had the temerity to go greet her and get his photo taken with her!

I had all of 30 seconds with her. She shook my hand kind of mechanically and smiled for the photo. I told her I was with the political science department and she looked at me with renewed interest and remarked that she understood it was an excellent department. She seemed to mean it sincerely, like she had had an actual conversation about this and remembered it. That's possible; she is in political science at Stanford and the Graduate School of Business, and we place undergraduates in graduate programs in both departments and then they go out and find jobs, and so the world turns. Maybe she also even reads actual political science articles too and knows someone's article.

Anyway, she gave the University Forum today and was quite charming. She completely won over nearly everyone, I believe. She gave a very inspirational commencement-style address but really managed to make it relevant to current students, in large part by telling stories of her own undergraduate experience. She wound up giving a pretty passionate defense of a liberal education. Because she loved political science, it turned out to be a pretty good advertisement for our major and for international studies programs.

Among her interesting ideas either in the speech or afterward in Q&A:

1. Biggest security threat to the US is deplorable state of K-12 education. (Ellen now adores Condi, as much for this as for anything).

2. Second biggest threat is the northern part of Mexico, which is increasingly looking like a failed state.

3. China is not likely to become the world's economic leader because the modern global economy is so much based on knoweldge and information, and China is too scared of open information flows.

4. Mistakes she made: Not paying enough attention to failed states before 9/11; not investing enough to rebuild Afghanistan and conquer Taliban post-9/11.

5.Favorite secretaries of State were Seward, Jefferson, Marshall and Acheson. The latter two were Truman's two Secretaries. Interestingly, they built global institutions, something the Bush administration in which Condi served was pretty averse to.

6. Work hard to find your passion and pursue it in terms of a major, but don't make it easy on yourself. If you're good at math, take writing classes and vice versa.

7. Educations must be well-rounded and include a good dose of the arts, including at K-12 level.

8. Schools must get better by having higher standards and by getting rid of teachers who aren't interested in improvement.

9. This was funny: She loves reading the newspaper and thinking, "Hmmm, that's interesting." That must be wonderful indeed, but perhaps also deflating if she thinks she can do better.

10. There will one day soon be a woman president. The interesting question is whether there will be a woman commander in chief of the armed forces.

11. If Hilary serves out her term, it will be 16 years since the last white male secretary of state.

12. Political dialogue has always been rough and tumble in this country, but the pace has accelerated, which is a huge problem. LBJ would not get something momentous like civil rights legislation through Congress nowdays because he would not be granted the time to do the coalition building that was necessary. Our institutions were designed to move slow and deliberately; the speed of modern negative political discourse helps prevent them from operating well.