Rice Right, For Once

Sure, I basically called her a crack-head, but for once Condi proves she’s a crack-head with a heart.

A musician long before she became an academic and then a world-famous diplomat, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took to the Kennedy Center concert stage Saturday to accompany a young soprano battling an often-fatal disease.

Rice’s rare and unpublicized appearance at the piano marked a striking departure from her routine as America’s No. 1 diplomat. A pianist from the age of 3 she played a half-dozen selections to accompany Charity Sunshine, a 21-year-old singer who was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension a little more than a year ago.

The soprano is a granddaughter of Rep. Tom Lantos, D-California, and his wife Annette, who Rice has known for years. The Pulmonary Hypertension Association, formed in 1990, presented the concert to draw attention to the disease from which more than 100,000 people are known to suffer.

…Lantos introduced Rice as “a warm friend” and said the concert was her idea, describing how her eyes filled with tears as he told him about his granddaughter’s illness.

“We have to do something about this and enhance public consciousness,” he quoted Rice as saying. “Let’s have a concert and I will accompany her at the piano.”

Rice, whose first name is a variation on the Italian musical term “con dolcezza,” which is a direction to play with sweetness, learned to read music at the age of 3.

And for the spawn of a Democrat, no less. For what it’s worth, Condi has finally done something I can applaud. I have full confidence, however, that she’ll go back to hitting the pipe very soon.