| It is one thing to have a limited political | | | | |
| goal and to fight decisively for it; it is | | | | . . . So the Gulf Coast has gone all Mad Max, |
| quite another to apply military force | | | | women are being raped in the Superdome, and |
| incrementally, hoping to find a political | | | | Rice is enjoying a brief vacation in New |
| solution somewhere along the way. A president | | | | York. We wish we were surprised. |
| entering these situations must ask whether | | | | |
| decisive force is possible and is likely to | | | | What does surprise us: Just moments ago at |
| be effective and must know how and when to | | | | the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue, Condoleeza [sic] |
| get out. | | | | Rice was seen spending several thousands of |
| | | | dollars on some nice, new shoes (we've |
| Condoleezza Rice | | | | confirmed this, so her new heels will surely |
| | | | get coverage from the [Washington Post's] |
| Foreign Affairs | | | | Robin Givhan). A fellow shopper, unable to |
| | | | fathom the absurdity of Rice's timing, went |
| January/February 2000 | | | | up to the Secretary and reportedly shouted, |
| | | | "How dare you shop for shoes while thousands |
| Condoleezza Rice had been working flat out | | | | are dying and homeless!" Never one to have |
| since becoming secretary of state in January, | | | | her fashion choices questioned, Rice had |
| delaying her vacation until the last days of | | | | security PHYSICALLY REMOVE the woman. |
| August. The president had been on his | | | | |
| vacation for weeks. In fact, Bush was on the | | | | Angry Lady, whoever you are, we love you. You |
| way to setting a presidential record, | | | | are a true American, and we'll go shoe |
| surpassing Ronald Reagan for time spent away | | | | shopping with you anytime. |
| from Washington. When her holiday finally | | | | |
| came, Rice embraced it with the same | | | | On Friday, the New York Daily News would |
| intensity she brought to her job. Escaping | | | | report that Spamalot audience members had |
| from work was one of the ways she maintained | | | | booed Rice when the lights came up. Then, the |
| balance -- like her daily workouts, her | | | | paper would ask, "Did New Yorkers chase |
| sessions with her chamber music group, and | | | | Condoleezza Rice back to Washington |
| her Sunday calls to friends and family. | | | | yesterday?" |
| | | | |
| She left Washington for her vacation in New | | | | Rice says that no one chased her anywhere: |
| York on Wednesday, August 31. That afternoon | | | | "On Thursday morning I got up, I had |
| she hit some balls with Monica Seles, and | | | | breakfast, and I went down to Ferragamo. I |
| that night she took in the sold-out Monty | | | | came back. Things had gotten pretty bad, and |
| Python musical, Spamalot, on Broadway. On | | | | plus I learned that the State Department had |
| Thursday morning she indulged her shoe | | | | a problem; our New Orleans Passport Center |
| obsession, shopping at Ferragamo on Fifth | | | | was down. And . . . the pictures were really |
| Avenue. While Rice was out, her | | | | ugly. I called the president and I said, 'I |
| communications chief, Jim Wilkinson, back in | | | | think I should come back.'" |
| his room at the Palace Hotel at Fifth and | | | | |
| Madison, came across an item on the Drudge | | | | Rice insists the alleged encounter with the |
| Report: | | | | angry woman at Ferragamo never happened. |
| | | | "Absolutely not . . . this stuff just gets |
| Eyewitness: Sec of State Condi Rice laughs it | | | | out there." |
| up at 'Spamalot' while Gulf Coast lays [sic] | | | | |
| in tatters. Theatergoers in New York City's | | | | And in a country outraged by the tragedy |
| Great White Way were shocked to see the | | | | unfolding in New Orleans, the tale of the |
| President's former National Security Adviser | | | | angry shopper did get out there. And -- like |
| at the Monty Python farce last night -- as | | | | CNN anchor Anderson Cooper's verbal lashing |
| the rest of the cabinet responds to Hurricane | | | | of Senator Mary Landrieu for politicians' |
| Katrina . . . | | | | diddling while rats ate dead bodies in the |
| | | | streets -- shot around the Internet. Later |
| Wilkinson's heart sank. The thirtysomething | | | | director Spike Lee would try to find the |
| aide was so attentive to Rice's image that | | | | irate Ferragamo shopper, unsuccessfully. But |
| before she gave speeches in drab hotel | | | | in Lee's searing 2006 documentary, When the |
| conference rooms abroad, he fussed with the | | | | Levees Broke, African American social |
| backdrop and podium to make sure the pictures | | | | commentator Michael Eric Dyson took Rice to |
| would show what the city she was in. And it | | | | task: "While people were drowning in New |
| was Wilkinson who stage-managed her airport | | | | Orleans, she was going up and down Madison |
| arrivals to make them look presidential. It | | | | Avenue buying Ferragamo shoes. Then she went |
| was no secret that he hoped Rice would run | | | | to see Spamalot!" |
| for president some day. And now this. | | | | |
| Hurricane Katrina had made landfall early | | | | Dyson muddled Ferragamo's address and the |
| Monday morning. Initially, weather | | | | chronology of Rice's holiday, but he captured |
| forecasters thought New Orleans had dodged a | | | | the sense of anger, even betrayal, that many |
| bullet; when the storm hit sixty-five miles | | | | African Americans felt toward the |
| southeast of the city, it had been downgraded | | | | administration in general and Condoleezza in |
| to a Category Three hurricane from a | | | | particular in the days after Katrina. |
| potentially cataclysmic Category Five. But by | | | | |
| 8 a.m. on Monday, one of the city's central | | | | The criticism took Rice by surprise. "These |
| canals had been breached. The nearby Lower | | | | are not my accounts," she protested to Chip |
| Ninth Ward, largely black and poor, was under | | | | Blacker, referring to domestic issues. |
| six to eight feet of water, and soon eighty | | | | |
| percent of New Orleans was flooded. Mayor Ray | | | | "I was watching on the news what was going on |
| Nagin reported "significant" loss of life; | | | | with Katrina. I wasn't getting the reports of |
| bodies could be seen floating in the | | | | what the hurricane was going to do or |
| floodwater. Looting erupted. | | | | anything like that," says Rice. "And so I |
| | | | responded like the secretary of state, which |
| Fifteen to twenty thousand residents took | | | | is [to] worry about the foreign |
| shelter in the Superdome, which was a | | | | contributions, worry about the [New Orleans] |
| designated "refuge of last resort." Another | | | | passport center. But it was less than |
| nearly twenty thousand crowded into the | | | | twenty-four hours before I realized it was |
| Convention Center, even though it wasn't a | | | | time to get back. |
| designated shelter and had no food or water. | | | | |
| On Tuesday morning, Louisiana governor | | | | "Look, I'd be the first to say I learned |
| Kathleen Blanco ordered the evacuation of the | | | | something from that. I thought of myself as |
| city, but no transportation was available to | | | | secretary of state; my responsibility is |
| move anyone. By Wednesday, when Rice left for | | | | foreign policy. I didn't think about my role |
| her vacation, the media was reporting that | | | | as a visible African American national |
| thousands were dead in New Orleans, and | | | | figure. I just didn't think about it." |
| television screens filled with the images of | | | | |
| the survivors. They were almost all African | | | | That Rice hadn't realized that she had a role |
| American, their eyes desperate, many carrying | | | | to play as a black leader was a result of how |
| babies and what possessions they could grab | | | | she saw the world. John and Angelena's |
| as the waters rose. Reporters who had covered | | | | efforts to invest their daughter with a |
| the Third World compared the scenes to | | | | limitless sense of possibility, to make her |
| refugee crises they had seen. | | | | unconquerable, had made her both less |
| | | | confined by race and less conscious of it. |
| By Thursday, the situation had gotten even | | | | |
| worse. Every hour, the cable news channels | | | | By the time Rice returned to Washington on |
| showed a dead woman in a wheelchair outside | | | | Thursday afternoon, President Bush was facing |
| the Convention Center, covered with a sheet, | | | | a public furor of his own, centered around |
| under the now clear skies of New Orleans. | | | | the photo the White House had released of |
| Despite what Drudge reported, no one seemed | | | | Bush peering out the window of Air Force One, |
| to be responding to Katrina. | | | | surveying Katrina's damage on his way back to |
| | | | Washington from Crawford. Presumably, the |
| Wilkinson -- a native of East Texas, whose | | | | White House intended to show a concerned |
| family had supported civil rights before it | | | | commander in chief; instead Bush had looked |
| was fashionable for whites to do so -- was | | | | detached and powerless. |
| concerned enough about the images of African | | | | |
| Americans stranded, begging for water from | | | | Watching the disaster coverage in her |
| camera crews, that he conferred with Rice's | | | | seventh-floor office at the State Department, |
| other top advisers about whether Condi needed | | | | Rice decided she had to go home to Alabama to |
| to return to Washington. "That woman needs a | | | | show that the administration cared. An aide |
| vacation," said one of Rice's advisers who | | | | phoned the White House to clear the trip, but |
| was also a friend. In fact, all of Rice's | | | | the White House resisted; the president |
| staff agreed: She had set travel records | | | | should travel to the gulf first, and he was |
| jetting around the globe, and she deserved | | | | planning to go early next week. But Rice's |
| her downtime. And besides, she was secretary | | | | office was adamant: The secretary needed to |
| of state, not the interior. | | | | be down South "with her people." They |
| | | | reminded the White House that they had their |
| But within hours, they regretted the | | | | own planes. The White House called back three |
| decision. The New York Post's gossip column | | | | hours later; Rice had been cleared to go. The |
| ran a piece reporting that Rice was working | | | | president would go earlier. |
| on her backhand with Monica Seles. Then the | | | | |
| gossip and news Web site Gawker posted a | | | | Copyright © 2007 Marcus Mabry from the |
| story headlined "Breaking: Condi Rice Spends | | | | book Twice as Good by Marcus Mabry Published |
| Salary on Shoes." | | | | by Modern Times; May 2007;$27.50US/$34. |