Throwing Rice

I remember a film I saw in Psychology class about glasses that would turn your vision upside down.  Amitabh Pal of The Progressive seems to be wearing a pair of them. 

Is it just me or did Condoleezza Rice come across as grating and supercilious to most everyone during her European sojourn? Europe must already be nostalgic for the agreeable, albeit ineffectual, Colin Powell.

News flash, Amitabh, it's just you.  This from the London Times:

ONE day after Condoleezza Rice called for a “new chapter” in transatlantic relations, she unveiled yesterday a new conciliatory brand of American diplomacy in the capital of Europe.

Or this, from the Telegraph:

Condoleezza Rice negotiated the trickiest leg of her European tour as the new US Secretary of State yesterday, extending an elegant hand of friendship to France and calling for a new understanding between America and Europe.

Or this, from the Australian:

THE US and France set aside almost three years of strained relations over Iraq yesterday when Condoleezza Rice swept in to Paris on an official mission to kiss and make up with the Bush administration's harshest European critic.

Declaring open a "new chapter" in relations between Washington and Europe, the new US Secretary of State met French President Jacques Chirac, who planted kisses on her hand, and French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, who referred to his American counterpart as "dear Condi".

In point of fact dear Condi seems to be striking all the right notes with the various Euroweenies who now, when things look to be falling into place, have suddenly discovered Anglo-European solidarity.  Any day now Chirac will be claiming that the Iraq war was all his idea.