George W. Bush got off on exactly the right note with the appointments of Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell. They should bring to his administration an intellectual honesty and a variety of experience that are not often found in the upper reaches of government.
Rice is intelligent, knowledgeable and hard-working.
She has a bachelor s degree from the University of Denver where her mentor was Josef Korbel, the father of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright a master s from Notre Dame and a doctorate, also from Denver. She was the National Security Council s top expert on Russia in the first Bush administration before returning to the staff of Stanford University. Powell s biography is another tale of accomplishment. The son of Jamaican immigrants, he grew up in Harlem and the South Bronx, graduated from the City College of New York and found a home in the Army. He served two tours in Vietnam, held a number of top government positions and was named national security advisor in 1987.