Condi

So they got to Condi too. She is in on the charade. How else to explain her disingenuously coy response when they asked her whether I was ready to serve.

I wonder if Condi retains any respect for me after all this. Surely she knows that, deep down, I am the same Sarah who mentored her in her Soviet research, and the one she still turns to for insight on the latest legislation passed by the Duma.

One evening, after I traced for her the trajectory of Russian democratic opposition – from Sakharov to Yavlinsky to today – she remarked, “Sarah, your background in Russian studies is nothing short of encyclopedic… I’m amazed by how clearly you see Russia from Alaska.”

I demurred, but I have to admit that the turn of phrase struck a chord.