Condi on the Rise

Rice will head to Lithuania in late April, and plans swings through Latin America and Africa before the summer ends. She is still ascending her learning curve. On the road last week, she was at times a little vague on the facts, slightly ill at ease with some subjects. She continues to resort to her talking points--a reporter on her plane likened her to a metronome. Needled at every stop in India and Pakistan about which country would first be allowed to buy F-16 fighters from the U.S., Rice tried to dodge. When all else failed, she dived for cover in a self-deprecatory joke that made reference to the two countries' shared love of cricket--a game she didn't understand but promised she would try to learn. The joke got a little tired after the fourth outing.

But you can bet Rice will be a cricket expert the next time she hits the subcontinent. Are the disagreements among Bush foreign policymakers gone? Of course not. But for now, the nonstop dissonance of the first term has subsided, replaced by something new: a single voice who speaks confidently for the boss. --With reporting by Bruce Crumley/Paris, Matthew Forney/Beijing, Sayed Talat Hussain/Islamabad, Jeff Israely/Rome, Donald Macintyre/Seoul, Scott MacLeod/Cairo, J.F.O. McAllister/London, Alex Perry/New Delhi, Matt Rees/Jerusalem, and Paul Quinn-Judge and Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow