Condi Opens Up (Not Really)

(Photo: pepperdine-graphic.com)

I guess I'd say the number one way my life has changed since the curtain closed on the Bush administration is the way I can go hours, days, even weeks without ever once thinking about Condoleezza Rice. And then I notice something, like yesterday when she wrote her profoundly brainless op-ed in the Washington Post about Egypt, and then I remember about Condi all over again. Oh Condi. Even in today's age of Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin, you remain one of the most peculiar political concoctions of all time.

So anyway! When I remember about Dr. Ferragamo, I get to Googling and hey, this looks promising, an article in the Pepperdine newspaper about Condi speaking at their weird, Christian-ish university last week. The headline is so promising: Condoleezza Rice opens up about life after Washington. True to form, however, she does no such thing. For instance, see if this sounds familiar, that her discussion ranged "from the current situation in Egypt to her roots as the daughter of a Presbyterian minister growing up in Birmingham, Ala." Oh really? How fascinating, because she's never once told any of those stories about being the daughter of a Presbyterian minister growing up in Birmingham, Alabama before. Not once. More like a zillion times to whomever will listen.

Ahem! So, right, no, there's no "opening up" (ew.) going on here, but the event seems to have not been without its charms! Condi's most revealing statement is when she answers a question about Egypt with another question. Now this is usually a tried and true strategy Condi often employs to avoid making statements, but in this case she miscalculated and revealed her opinions by mistake: ""Which should we be supporting: stability for us or freedom for the Egyptian people?" It's one or the other, people, it can't be both!

And then just for cheap laffs, she delivered this howler:

She also addressed the touchy topic of WMDs in Iraq, explaining, "I think we knew really at the end of summer, beginning of the fall, 2003, that we weren't finding them, and something had gone wrong," she said. "I, like I think everybody in the administration, was floored,"

OMG, they were so surprised and bummed! And then this, Condi's supposedly funny-on-purpose side:

Though she spent some time addressing serious topics, she also expressed a humorous side as well.

Commenting on Iran, she joked, "I'd love to think there was a responsible Iran hiding in the clothes of Ahmadinejad."

Ha... ha? Why am I not laughing at this joke which doesn't make any sense? Oh, right. OK, so then finally Condi tells her biggest lie in ages when she says she's really friends with Donald Rumsfeld and not at all miffed that he trashed her in his book and Condi, really, please. I mean, LOL.

And then at the end of the article, my favorite part, a student enthuses about Condi's visit, claiming that "I liked hearing that we should not let circumstances, but rather the decisions we make, define us."

How meaningful!