Condi Rice Jay Leno Interview

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last night and was perfectly lovely. Read about her appearance below and see photos and the videos of the entire interview.

Condoleezza Rice

Former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice caused quite a stir when she visited Europe wearing a pair of sexy black boots. The European leaders seemed to love it and they seemed to love her. Some were downright flirtatious with her. Can you blame them? They had had eight years of Madeleine Albright.

Not only did Condi Rice bring class and grace to her position as America’s senior diplomat, she was also good at her job. Now she is retired and says she enjoys not having to do anything about the problems of the world. That’s what she said when she appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight. Contrary to another political guest he had recently, she didn’t try to make cute little jokes at the expense of the developmentally disabled or any other group.

Rice talked to Jay Leno about why she gave up her desire to be a concert pianist to go into politics.

A former concert pianist, Rice says her favorite music is, what? She listens to it every time she’s on the elliptical: “Then I can really be with Led Zeppelin.”

But how did she go from music studies to becoming George W. Bush’s foreign policy mentor, national security advisor and secretary of State? “I studied piano from age 3. I could read music before I could read, and my grandmother taught me to play the piano…. I went off to school and studied piano as a music major for a couple of years. And then I went off to the Aspen Music Festival, in the summer of my sophomore year. And I met 12-year-olds who played from sight everything that had taken me all year to learn.

“And I thought, ‘OK. You’re gonna end up teaching 13-year-olds … Beethoven, or maybe you’ll play a piano bar or maybe you’ll play at Nordstrom, but you’re not playing Carnegie Hall. Find another career path.’ ”

So she wandered into the international politics class of a man named Joseph Corbell, whose daughter turned out to be Madeline Albright, the first female secretary of State before Rice became No. 2 and Hillary Clinton No. 3.

She also took the high road when it came to commenting on the current administration that replaced her and her former boss, George W. Bush.

“My view is we got to do it our way,” Rice says. “We did our best. We did some things well, some things not so well. Now, they get their chance.

“And I agree with the president [Bush]. We owe them our loyalty and our silence while they do it. Because I know what it’s like to have people chirping at you when they perhaps don’t know what’s going on inside. These are quality people. I know them. They love the country. And they won’t make the same decisions, perhaps, that we did. But I believe they’ll do what they think is best for the country, and I’ll give my advice privately and keep it to myself.”

She’s a class act.

You can see the entire interview and more photos below.