Bush's many foreign policy gaffes guarantee he will face heavy pressure to prove he's smarter on world affairs than he sounds. Rice, a Russia expert and former Stanford University provost, went to work in the White House in 1989 as National Security Council director of Soviet and East European Affairs, and stayed until March 1991. A major cultural figure, adorning the bedroom walls of innumerable kids and the covers of innumerable magazines. Former President Bush could not have been more flattering in introducing Rice to Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1989. She tells me everything I know about the Soviet Union.
Rice is indeed tight with the governor.
A report released last week listing the names of overnight guests at the governor's mansion showed Rice to be one of the most frequent visitors. In a recent phone interview, Rice recalled her rise to political renown. She was born in Birmingham, Ala., in 1954, and since both parents were teachers, education was a major theme of her youth. So was faith. Her father, John Rice, was an ordained Presbyterian minister, as well as dean of Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, and later vice chancellor of the University of Denver.