Condi, Condi, CONDI!

The Brit political elites seem to have gone ga ga over Condi. The Telegraph reports on "Condimania":

The Dean of Blackburn is a holy man and, as such, is not generally touched by earthly desires. He has serious misgivings about the Iraq war. He is a sensible, mild-mannered sort of fellow, not given to unnecessary exaggeration. But that was yesterday. That was BC. Before Condoleezza.

"Oh, I thought she was charming," says the Very Rev Christopher Armstrong, reflecting on his hour-long meeting with the US Secretary of State in Blackburn Cathedral. He pauses. A playful half-smile curls his lips. His eyes glaze over slightly and gaze into the middle distance. It is as if he is recalling a particularly pleasing experience, such as winning the egg-and-spoon race at his primary school.

"She looks nice, she's interesting, she's very aware, very concerned, and she can handle the protesters so well. She knows other people's opinions are important and she values them."

A few hours earlier, Mr Armstrong had been declaiming the war in Iraq in forceful tones in front of the nation's media. Now, he appears to have undergone a quasi-religious conversion. But you can't blame him. This, it seems, is quite simply the Condi effect.

....

In her presence, the normally buttoned-up Mr Straw alternated between looking like a proud father bringing his daughter into the office for work experience and an adolescent schoolboy with a hopeless crush on the head girl.

....

[S]urely, presenting Ms Rice with a Blackburn Rovers football shirt and giggling softly at her witticisms was going a bit too far? What must Mrs Straw make of having a third person in their marriage? "Er… no comment," says a constituency office spokesman.

.....

Over the past week, male journalists have written lyrically about her "lacquered hair" and her well-tailored trouser suits: a pretty mauve number for her first date with the Foreign Secretary on Friday and a more sober black outfit for yesterday.

It was pointed out that her name was derived from a musical expression: con dolcezza, meaning "with sweetness". Even her appearance on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, normally the bloodiest of gladiatorial arenas for unpopular politicians, was marked by a curious - and unusually lengthy - tenderness.

And so it goes. Read the whole thing here.