ASPEN, Colo., SUNDAY, 3 August -- Two-thirds of the U.S. Secretaries of State have been women this millennium. One is talking on the stage below me speaking to a hushed crowd of about 2,000, in a tent at Aspen Institute. Her name is Madeleine Albright. She's a Democrat and served as Secretary of State in the Clinton administration.
"So I phoned Condi," Madeleine is saying, "to see if she would be an adviser to the Michael Dukakis's campaign."
Why is the crowd laughing now?
Madeleine continues, "And Condi said to me, 'I don't know how to tell you this, Madeleine, but I'm a Republican.'"
"HOW COULD YOU BE?" Madeleine says to Condi. "We had the same father."
Now the crowd really goes nuts.
I hope she explains this, I'm thinking.
It turns out that Madeleine's father, Josef Korbel, taught international studies at the University of Denver and that two of his students were, you guessed it, both Madeleine and Condi, but not at the same time. Albright told the same story in a footnote of her autobiography.
"Condi was his favorite student," she says to the crowd. "So I would like to introduce my sister now, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice."
It's old home week in Aspen for Condoleezza Rice, who attended music school one summer here as a teen. She's come back to play the piano with a quartet of music students. She's also feels at home apparently with some pretty heavyweight Democrats, too, including Albright and U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is also in the tent.
Well, it seems Bush's Condi used to be one herself -- a Democrat I mean. As a Demo, she even worked in the State Department when Jimmy Carter was president. And even after she became a Republican in 1982, reportedly because she didn't like Carter's foreign policy, she served as Gary Hart's foreign affairs adviser when he ran for President in 1984.
Condi also is in Aspen to be interviewed by Walter Isaacson -- an author and former Chairman and CEO of CNN and the former editor of Time magazine -- who now heads Aspen Institute. Their exchange is about to start.
Condi takes the stage to a standing ovation.
I've been worried about how Condi might be received. She is scheduled to receive the Leadership Award from Aspen Institute and there are some folks pissed about it. In fact I had expected to see a protest group here, but everything's cool, so far.
I arrived early. Guys with "bomb squad" written on their shirts were running around everywhere. And there was a bomb-sniffing dog that sniffed all my cameras, notebooks and stuff and even sniffed the piano that Condi is to play and the chairs where Walter and Condi will be seated for the interview. And two guys sat in the chairs to try them out. Remember those mob movies where the boss would send his wife out to start his car?
There have been several negative letters to the editor in the local papers about Condi. One entitled "No good reason for Condi Award" accused Condi of using "untruths" and helping stir "mushroom cloud" fears in order to sell the war in Iraq. And she's been referred to locally as a "war criminal" and "supporter of genocide."
I might also mention that the letter, "No good reason for Condi Award, " was situated in the Aspen Times above one entitled "Obama -- a Manchurian puppet." . . .
The interview has already started.
Condi and Walter are seated and talking to each other.
He's steering her toward making a comment on the upcoming presidential election. Whoopee!
"Have you been vetted yet as a possible running mate for John McCain?" Walter says.
"No," Condi answers emphatically. Apparently Condi doesn't want to be vice president or anything else in government, for that matter, after being Secretary of State. "I don't need another government job, " she says. "There's something to be said for fresh blood." A few moments later she hits this point again. "I'm quite serious about new blood."
The woman seated next to me in the tent is scribbling madly. "Wow!" she says. "Did she say what I think she said? It could have come out of Obama's play book."
She may have something there. The image of John McCain doesn't immediately come to mind as a presidential candidate with either fresh or new blood.
So is Condi a closet supporter of Obama's?
C'mon, Walter ask her if she's going to support McCain!
But Walter doesn't. He knows which side his bread is buttered on, and he may want Condi to come back some time.
There's a guy in the audience now standing. He wants to make a statement. He is Dr. Saleemul Huq, group head of the International Institute for Environment and Development. Condi has already said that global warming is a national security issue, but that if China and India don't clean up their pollution then what the rest of the world does won't make any difference. We can drive electric cars and do all that other green stuff 'til hell freezes over and it won't matter a whit.
"If China and India are not part of the framework nothing we do to reverse greenhouse gas is going to work," Condi says. "The Chinese have to create twenty-five million jobs a year - They're not going to give up growth for the environment."
Okay here's Dr. Huq making a statement. "China and India as well as the U.S. are already in the framwork of Kyoto Protocol as well as 180 countries. The U.S. is the only country not to sign it."
There is a burst of applause from the audience.
I'm sure Condi has something sensible to say in answer to Dr. Huq, but I'm busy searching for past references online about her connection to Barack Obama.
There's a video of Condi saying in part, "I congratulate Senator Obama and Senator McCain on their respective campaigns and Senator Clinton on hers as well. I look forward to viewing it all from the sidelines as a voter." So she's not going to campaign for McCain, apparently. Be your own judge. Seems a lot like the Republican Bush Administration Secretary of State is neither campaigning for nor endorsing the McCain candidacy.
Condi is leaving the stage now to another standing ovation. She changes clothes and returns to play piano with a quartet of Aspen music students. The pieces are Brahms Piano Quintet in F Minor op 34 and Dvorak's Piano Quintet in A Major, B. 155, op. 81. Remember Brahms's Lullaby? The Brahms piece sounds something like that. The Dvorak number really moves. It kicks. Condi bangs the keys like Liberace.
Interesting person, Condi. Albright described her earlier as a "charismatic Secretary of State who plays the piano better than any foreign minister and who is a far better foreign minister than any pianist."
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Aspen Free Press photos by Karen Day.