1999 profile of Condoleezza Rice

This is interesting. The National Review has reposted a profile of Condoleeza Rice from its August 30, 1999 issue.

Stuff I didn't know:

Finally she met Josef Korbel, a former Czech diplomat, a refugee from Nazism and Communism, who headed Denver's school of international relations. "I really adored him," says Rice. "I really did. He's the reason I'm in this field. I loved his course, and I loved him. He sort of picked me out as someone who might do this well." From then on, it was "Soviet politics, Soviet everything."

Korbel, of course, was Madeleine Albright's father. ("Who would've thunk it?" admits Rice.) Rice knew the young Albright, as she, Rice, was a frequent guest in the Korbel home.

Huh.

My favorite part, though:

When it comes to Israel, Rice professes an emotional attachment, a pull that goes beyond the bounds of the coolly analytic. Israel, she says, "is a struggling democracy in the midst of non-democratic states that would do it great harm." This was a nation that "nobody wanted to be born, that was born into a hostile environment, and that, without so strong a moral compass and so strong a people, might not have made it." For the United States, Rice contends, Israel is no less than "a moral commitment." "I've told you I'm a Realpolitiker, but this one is different."

She's great.