One of our favorite contemporary writers, Peggy Noonan, makes a remarkable point on Condi Rice heading up the State Department:

"Look at it this way. In every U.S. embassy and consulate in the world very soon, non-Americans will walk in to see two things: a picture of the American president and next to it a picture of the young black woman who is this nation's secretary of state. They will notice this, and consciously or not they will think: This truly must be some kind of country."

So true, and so american!