Today, Condi Rice was sworn in as our new Secretary of State.

My feelings about this are quite mixed.

Emotionally, I'm quite pleased that a woman of her intelligence has been placed into this position, with the hope that she allow herself the grace of diplomacy with other countries, tempered by compassion. A true healing needs to occur for us as a global race to continue to exist.

Rationally, Rice is still a direct arm of the President, who's agenda is clearly suspect to our global neighbors. The media has made much of the new Secretary of State's push for restoring diplomatic relations. Those of us who followed the career of Colin Powell know his natural inclination was in direct contridiction to those of the President. However, the media will still skew a story at the behest of politicians in power to gain an advantage. So, the best any of us can do is give Secretary Rice a chance to prove her own intentions for her post... and hope for the best.