As an anxious world anticipates Rice's next move if she's confirmed, poet Dungy admits to having watched her for years. In 1994, the author -- a National Endowment of the Arts grant winner from Lynchburg, Va. -- was a student at Stanford when Rice was its provost.
"She's an incredibly powerful figure who has attained a position to which everyone should be able to strive," Dungy told me Wednesday. "But once you get there -- what? What's your motivation for that level of power?"
Rice's actions, Dungy said, "make me suspicious of her motivations."
Inherently, we want those who are like us to succeed. I, too, love buying shoes; Rice's rounded nose and dignified bearing remind me of certain friends' and family members'. As proud as I've been of her achievements and poise, I've been less impressed by aspects of her performance as national security adviser:
Her apparent difficulty -- which matches her boss's -- with acknowledging mistakes; her "whatever you say" loyalty, which would deny the fact that every boss, even a president, should sometimes be challenged; continuing questions about what, if anything, might have prevented or ameliorated the nation's worst-ever security breach -- Sept. 11, 2001 -- which happened to occur under her watch.
So with all due respect to Ms. Height, I'm not yet smiling. People of every shade can be mediocre, incompetent -- or amazing. A fair society acknowledges all three possibilities -- and assists citizens in achieving their potential greatness. Like Height, I, too, pray that Rice will "use this profound honor . . . to represent our country with compassion, strength and integrity."
I can't predict Rice's accomplishments as secretary of state. But I do know this:
Even the most exalted among us will be judged not by our positions but by what we do with them. If she's confirmed, Rice will have four years to craft with her actions what the poets and history books will write after "first black female secretary of state" is a memory.
Ultimately, that will be what matters.
