I've made no secret that I love our Secretary of State, Dr. Condoleeza Rice. A rare combination of talent, brains, and beauty, she demonstrated her class Saturday night. And she put politics aside to do it, for the benefit of a good cause.

A musician long before she became an academic and then a world-famous diplomat, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took to the Kennedy Center concert stage Saturday to accompany a young soprano battling an often-fatal disease.

Rice's rare and unpublicized appearance at the piano marked a striking departure from her routine as America's No. 1 diplomat. A pianist from the age of 3 she played a half-dozen selections to accompany Charity Sunshine, a 21-year-old singer who was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension a little more than a year ago.

The soprano is a granddaughter of Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., and his wife Annette, who Rice has known for years. The Pulmonary Hypertension Association, formed in 1990, presented the concert to draw attention to the disease from which more than 100,000 people are known to suffer.

Congressman Lantos is a big-time liberal Democrat. I disagree with him quite often. But my heart reaches out to him and his family, especially since my wife and I know the sort of struggle faced by patients (and their families) who suffer from illnesses that are painful, debilitating, and rare. There usually isn't much research into such diseases, and you often have to hope that research into something else brings a breakthrough that can be applied to the less common condition.

Oh, and for those who are curious, Condi played selections by Verdi, Mozart and Jerome Kern.

To learn more, or to contribute, to the fight against Pulmonary Hypertension, click here.

Posted by: Greg at 07:43 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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