The Black Republican

Shhhhhhh! Listen up, or you'll miss some classic Peggy Noonan stuff here.

The criticism of Ms. Rice has been fascinating. Her critics need to sit down and have a Coke, as Bob Dole said. A friend said to me yesterday, "She is boring." I thought, really? You can't be boring enough; we've had quite enough excitement.

Another person said, "She's not very feminine." My first thought was: Neither was Colin.

I once compared Ms. Noonan as the conservative stiletto to Ann Coulter's hatchet. That must be why my ribs are so sore after reading that line.

My second thought was: How startling is this conversation? I should probably explain it was held in Manhattan.

"I think she is extremely ladylike in her bearing and manner," I said. "Soft voice, pastel suits, heels, not a hair out of place."

"Yes," my friend said, "but she doesn't give off any sparks of sexuality."

Is it wrong of me to presume that the person she's talking to is a heterosexual woman or a homosexual man? I'll forgive the Grand Dame for agreeing, because she's got a point, and I don't want to ruin it.

"That's another thing I like about her", I said. We don't want a secretary of state running around giving off sparks of sexuality, do we? We don't want a secretary of state giving off sparks at all. We want a nice, quiet, calming, competent, sophisticated, even-keeled person to do a good, solid, nonshowy job.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that in a few years, we're going to look back and notice that the "nice, quiet, calming, competent, sophisticated, even-keeled person," after visiting with men like Chirac, Schröder, and Putin (this last sans translator), and sitting demurely for the photo-op shots and smiling for the cameras, slipped a few stilettos of her own past a foreign rib or two.

And she's going to look damn sexy when she does it.