The Quiet Power of Condi Rice

"It was time for someone to have a quiet word with Cheney. The president’s emissary was his national-security adviser, a trim 48-year-old woman with a wide, warm smile, a polite manner and an unmistakable steeliness. Meeting with the vice president at the White House, Condoleezza Rice was friendly and low key. Cheney’s speech, she blandly suggested, had been “interpreted” by the press in a way that might “limit the president’s options.” Rice waited for Cheney himself to suggest a solution. The veep said he was giving another speech in a couple of days. He would tone down the derisive language about inspectors and leave the door open for the United States to work through the United Nations. The newspapers duly noted the shift in the vice president’s tone, but Rice’s intercession did not leak."

A good story in Newsweek about Bush's enforcer in the White House, Denver Univeristy's own Condoleezza Rice.  I've been fairly impressed with what appears to be her firm control over the hawks of Cheney/Wolfowitz's camp, and the more dovish Powell supporters.  Is there some hope in this administration?