Obama Gives Condoleezza Rice A Shout Out In His Inaugural Address

Tough as nails, smart as a whip
and beautiful, to boot. Thanks,
President Obama, for reminding us
what competent government officials
look like!

In President Obama's oddly angry and confrontational Inaugural Address yesterday, he spoke the following lines:

We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.

'Puter immediately thought of Dr. Condoleezza Rice.  Dr. Rice was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1954, the heart of the segregated South and the height of Jim Crow.  Sure, as the only child of a reverend and a teacher, Dr. Rice may not have been poor, but she certainly contended with institutional and state-enforced racism every bit as bleak and soul crushing as the bleakest poverty.

And, like President Obama's fictional raceless little girl (let's call her Julia), Dr. Rice not only knew that as an American she was free and equal before God and law, she acted on it.

Dr. Rice is an accomplished pianist on par with professional orchestra musicians. Dr. Rice holds a Ph.D. in political science, writing her dissertation on military policy and politics in Czechoslovakia.  She was a tenured professor at Stanford University, earning promotion to Provost of the university, in which position she turned a $20 million deficit into a $14.5 million surplus in two years.

Not to mention that Dr. Rice was George W. Bush's National Security Advisor and later, his Secretary of State.

How's that for making the most of one's "chance to succeed?" Ironically, Dr. Rice's "chance to succeed" was freedom from oppressive and immoral government rules and laws.  Freed from Jim Crow and blessed with a supportive family, Dr. Rice succeeded spectacularly.

'Puter bets that President Obama thinks his fictional Julia's "chance to succeed" would never come without the benefit of a high cost, freedom reducing, ultimately ineffective government program.

So thanks, President Obama, for reminding 'Puter of one of America's greatest success stories, thereby distracting him from the remainder of your angry, partisan speech.