In his upcoming biography of Condoleezza Rice, Washington Post correspondent Glenn Kessler shows how the Secretary of State “has lost none of her bluntness” while working “hard to soften her edges.” In one anecdote revealed by Kessler, Rice dressed down a jewelry store clerk who gave her less than satisfactory service:
Coit Blacker, a Stanford professor who is one of the secretary of state’s closest friends, recalls going into a shop where Rice asked to see earrings. The clerk showed her costume jewelry. Rice asked to see something nicer, prompting the clerk to whisper some sass under her breath.
Blacker remembers Rice tearing the woman to shreds.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” he recalls her saying. “You are behind the counter because you have to work for minimum wage. I’m on this side asking to see the good jewelry because I make considerably more.”
A manager quickly brought Rice better baubles.
The Secretary of State who was too busy buying shoes on 5th Avenue and watching Broadway shows to help New Orleanians drowning in filthy water 2 years ago (while her boss was similarly distracted at his "ranch" in Texas) delivers here a very revealing upbraid. She saw herself as superior to the clerk, and by virtue of the size of her pocketbook. Now I understand why such a well-educated black woman who grew up in Birmingham in the '50's would become a Republican, serving in the most conservative administration of the post-war era, and under the first Southern conservative president.
Condi thinks being rich means never having to say you're equal.
2 comments:
Dear Angry Blogger:
The clerk refused to show Condi the real jewelry because Condi is black.
You don't get this. I'm not surprised.
Aww, did we touch a nerve? So sad.
You assume the clerk was racist, so the account does not in any way imply that her "sass" was racist. You also assume, tellingly, that the clerk was white, which also was not implied.
You also have nothing to say, apparently, about the content of Condi's comment. If the clerk's comment were more significant to the story than Condi's, that is, if the significance of the anecdote was that Condi received a racist comment, the narrator would've mentioned that or told us what they said.
But why bother with facts when you can just write nasty messages to people you disagree with?
And you do realize that posting mean-spirited messages on people's blogs make you, ahem, an angry blogger, right?
Of course, I guess the beauty of anonymity is that you never have to answer for inane comments.
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