Barack Obama has placed his order for a new kind of rice: Condi's out -- and Susan's in.

Condoleezza Rice

Susan Rice

That's Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador-designate to the U.N. And no, she's no relation to the outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. (Place your bets now on how long reporters will point out that the two black women are not related.)

Beyond their name, ethnicity, and connections to Stanford (Susan as student, Condi as professor), there are striking parallels:

Both Rices were cultivated by Albrights -- Susan by Madeleine, Condi by Madeleine's father Josef Korbel. And as foreign policy tutors to future presidents, each Rice was an essential part of her boss' diet.

So how do the two Rices compare?

Condi Rice has always been self-possessed, sometimes rigid, with nary a movement left to chance. She's always been a Rice Pilaf. And at age 54, she's approaching Long Grain.

In October 2002 Harry Belafonte accused Condi of being a servile Uncle Ben's Rice. It was a harsh critique -- and misguided since, after all, the Mars company (which owns Uncle Ben's Rice), elevated the Uncle Ben character to Chairman of the company.

Susan Rice is younger and brasher, a former assistant Secretary of State under Clinton who stunned her former bosses by jumping ship to join the Obama campaign. Her history suggests a Wild Rice.

But because of Obama's internationalist perspective, rooted in a childhood spent in Indonesia, Susan will need to be more of a Sticky Rice, connecting with other members at the U.N. (My mother loves sticky rice with mango, but that's more Thai.)

She'll have to be tough at times, yes, but she'll also have to be sweet, not unlike this delicious rice-based dessert:


Gemblong is an Indonesian treat: deep fried sticky rice coated with caramel. Yummy!

But beware: Conservatives leery of Obama's European sympathies are concerned that Susan is more of an Orzo - pasta masquerading as rice!

It's hard to know which kind of Rice America needs right now. (The troubles in the Indian Subcontinent call for a Basmati Rice.)

Robert Wexler (the impeachment guy) makes Condoleezza Rice defend her integrity during a foreign affair committee meeting yesterday, although she appears to be suffering from roid rage, I assure you she is not on steroids, that was a different hearing. For an in depth investigation into this hearing, check out thinkprogress.org.

via videosift.com

Opie and Anthony just got in trouble on XM Satellite Radio for having an open conversation about sex with Laura Bush, Condoleezza Rice and Queen Elizabeth. Apparently there was violent imagery involved as well. That part is unacceptable. I'm not going to get into what the ramifications of that should be and if an apology fixes the situation.

So, this is not a judgment on XM's actions in this case, since there was a different number of issues involved. For the rest of this post, I will discuss just the sexual part of the conversation, not the part involving violence, which has a different standard -- and should.

I want to make two points about open sexual talk on-air. First, context matters. They are on satellite radio and I view that as a free speech zone. There is a rating system for parents and parental blocking system on XM. Those are responsible precautions. Because of that and the fact that it is a for-pay system, they should be allowed to have a very, wide range on any and all discussions. They can be completely racist, sexist or any other damn thing they please. As long as they don't advocate outright violence in a way that is clearly illegal, I think it is imperative that we have places where people can speak completely freely.

You never know where speech takes you sometimes. And what seems like horribly offensive speech might open up very necessary dialogue and allow you to talk about issues that are buried and not discussed in the open nearly enough. We need to have a place where adults talk without fearing offense. If you are offended, be an adult and turn the channel.

We can't censor everything based on the lowest common denominator of sensitivity. This applies to conservative thought, liberal thought or completely non-political thought. You don't need the concept of freedom of speech to protect pleasant speech, you need it to protect speech that might be and is offensive to some.

Second, talking about sex with public officials should be completely inside the bounds on satellite radio. We used to do it all the time when we were exclusively on Sirius Satellite Radio (we are now in national syndication on local radio stations and XM satellite radio). We would often ask questions like (don't read further if you are easily offended by the idea of sex): Who would you rather do: Laura Bush or Condoleezza Rice?