Rice's image shines amid White House clouds

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Condoleezza Rice has shed image as hawkish "warrior princess."

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20051226/1004962.asp

Now in her second year as the country's senior diplomat, Condoleezza Rice has managed to avoid the controversies assailing the Bush White House.

By ANNE GEARAN
Associated Press
12/26/2005

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has become the most popular member of the Bush administration and a potential candidate to succeed her boss in the White House, even as Americans lose confidence in the president she serves and patience with the Iraq war she helped launch.

Entering her second year as the country's senior diplomat and foreign policy spokeswoman, Rice has improbably shed much of her image as the hawkish "warrior princess" at President Bush's side. The nickname was reportedly bestowed by staff at the White House National Security Council, where Rice was an intimate member of Bush's first-term war council.

Rice resolutely defends the post-Sept. 11 war on terrorism and the expansive executive powers that Bush claims came with it. She has lately sounded more optimistic than Bush about the progress of the Iraq War and the future for that country.

Yet, it is unusual to hear anyone talk about Rice as an architect of either of those two defining undertakings of the Bush presidency...