Condoleezza Rice, like everyone else, is 'worn down and discouraged by the war', the New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller writes in her new biography (Random House, $27.95). Early morning work-outs on her 'elliptical trainer', shopping at expensive boutiques and American Idol provide some relief. But Rice has found her greatest 'escape from the anxieties of her day' - the anxieties she's done so much to foster - by playing the piano with her chamber ensemble, whose recitals in the capital have 'attracted a bipartisan audience'. 'It's the time I'm most away from myself, and I treasure it,' Condi explains, and we wish she'd do more of it. She once dreamed of a career in classical music, and although she gave it up to study Soviet politics, you could say that she never stopped being a performer. Here she is in a red Oscar de la Renta gown, sashaying down the stairs of the British ambassador's 'palatial residence on Massachusetts Avenue'; there she is appearing before American troops wearing 'a long, military-style black coat that blew open to reveal a skirt just above the knee and a pair of sexy, high-heeled black boots.'

LRB 3 January 2008 | PDF Download