Rice Punches Back at Boxer

Say what you want about Condi Rice and her job performance, but the contemptible Barbara Boxer went so far overboard and deserves all the scorn she is getting. Friday, Rice and the White House fired back.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday challenged Sen. Barbara Boxer's claim that she can't make effective decisions about sending U.S. troops to war because she's not a mother.

"I thought single women had come further than that," Rice said. "The only question is, 'Are you making good decisions because you have kids?' "

Boxer, in a venomous tirade during a tense Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday, told Rice she couldn't understand the "price" of war - a shot at the fact the nation's top diplomat has never married and has no children.

"You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family," Boxer (D-Calif.) fumed.

Boxer's comments stunned the committee room and one GOP staffer likened her to a "bad actor at a high-school play."

The White House yesterday joined Rice in blasting back with both barrels.

President Bush's spokesman Tony Snow slammed Boxer's rant as an "outrage" and called it a "great leap backward for feminism."

"Here you got a professional woman, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Barbara Boxer is sort of throwing little jabs because Condi doesn't have children, as if that means that she doesn't understand the concerns of parents," Snow said.

"I don't know if she was intentionally that tacky, but I do think it's outrageous," Snow told Fox News Channel.

Rice said she was initially confused by Boxer's broadside.

"I guess that means I don't have kids, is that the purpose of that? I assume," Rice told Fox News Channel.

A defiant Boxer yesterday refused to apologize.

"I spoke the truth at the committee hearing, which is that neither Secretary Rice nor I have family members that will pay the price for this escalation," Boxer insisted in a statement.

Democrats never apologize. They just get nastier.

Personally, I believe Boxer has problem with a strong, attractive African-American woman being her intellectual superior.

Remarkably, the New York Times failed to even mention the story Friday. Just reverse the roles and see if they'd ignore it. Doubtful.