Bias?

Update: (11/19/2004) Welcome to readers from The Volokh Conspiracy and Instapundit. Some additional information about Ms. Rice's position can be found in this followup post.

In an earlier post I wondered where Condoleeza Rice stood on the issue of guns and gun ownership. I couldn't find much on the topic, so I decided to read Condi: The Condoleezza Rice Story by Antonia Felix. But it didn't take long before I discovered the author's biases on this issue.

"W is for Women" was one part of a calculated move to undo what previous Republican campaigns and National Conventions had done--create a gender gap between the parties. Barbara Bush and her group sought to portray George W. as the face of a new and improved Republican party committed to education and women's health--a far cry from the angry, warrior-like tone of the pro-gun, anti-abortion, macho-white-male party of past GOP conventions. (Pg. 16, emphasis added)

The author makes the frustrating equation between "group identity" and politics that has become so much in vogue these days, most commonly among those who would practice divide-and-conquer politics. I fail to see how being pro-gun automatically equates to being anti-woman. In fact, I would suspect that this woman and these women would beg to differ. Anyhow, at this point, I'm beginning to wonder if the author will be able to move past her biases to address this topic.

My searches for other sources of information on Ms. Rice's views on guns have turned up little of relevance (the main problem being that of late the term "smoking gun" is often associated with any search for her name, making it hard to find the relevant hits). I found one encouraging article, but unfortunately I could not find the original source. The copy is being hosted by the New York State Amateur Trapshooting Assocation on their website. It appears to be a copy of a George F. Will article from Sunday, August 6, 2000.

In a pleasantly meandering conversation over lunch in San Francisco last summer, Condoleezza Rice, then still provost of Stanford but already unofficially what she now is officially, George W. Bush's senior foreign policy adviser, was asked her thoughts about gun control. "I am," she answered crisply, "a Second Amendment absolutist." Growing up in Birmingham, Ala., in the early 1960s, when racial tensions rose, there were, she said, occasions when the black community had to exercise its right to bear arms in self-defense, becoming, if you will, a well-regulated militia. (Emphasis in red in original)

I will continue reading and searching...

Posted by Aubrey at February 23, 2003 02:14 PM