While the planet burns, the only Secretary of State we've got is (a) already running for president, (b) turning into just as much of a jockish twit as her boss, or (c) both:

Rice shows off her fitness regime

Condoleezza Rice, the nation's top diplomat, is appearing in a three-part TV interview in which she rides a bike, works on her abs, pumps iron and talks about her weight....

The first segment aired Wednesday on Washington's NBC affiliate....

Rice gets up at 4:30 a.m. She exercises every day, no matter where in the world she is. The interview shows her in the State Department gym, sweating in ordinary workout clothes....

At one point, Rice is on a mat, isolating her abdominal muscles, listening as her ex-Marine trainer tells her to find the right balance. Apparently, Rice knows all about that....

I vote for (a). I think this is a trial balloon, done on local TV to see whether it will play nationally -- it's meant to humanize her, to sell her as a you-go-girl candidate to the Oprah crowd and as a two-fisted beauty-and-brains graphic-novel superheroine to the guys (I wish I were joking). If it draws too much Beltway-pundit snark and too many nasty late-night-comic jokes, well, back to square one. Otherwise, expect more and more of this sort of thing.

(Via Memeorandum.)

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By the way, if you think it's sexist or otherwise demeaning for the Secretary of State to be on display this way, you're not thinking like a Republican. Back in the '80s, the President of the United States used to get himself photographed lifting weights -- see the picture here, and also, if you suddenly find yourself in a warehouse full of old Sunday supplements, see the cover of the December 4, 1983, issue of Parade magazine, which showed Reagan pumping iron (and was believed to have helped his reelection bid the next year). Alas, I can't find a link to the cover itself, but it's on page 77 of Paul Slansky's book The Clothes Have No Emperor, if you have that on your shelf.