Cool Condoleeza Rice has been wowing ’em with her first foreign tour as secretary of state (also known as: the most powerful woman in the world).


“She is not the first black U.S. secretary of state, nor the first woman to hold that office. (And that’s a sentence I thought I’d *never* write.),” writes Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post.


Why on earth did Mr. Robinson think he’d never write that sentence? Has he been living in an igloo? Surely, sometime in the last four years Mr. Robinson must have had some inkling that Dr. Rice was likely to afford him just such an opportunity?


That’s just the beginning of the clich’s Mr. Robinson unloads in his piece on Dr. Rice. He notes that Rice “doesn’t fit any of the silly, often repellent stereotypes that black women get tagged with” and proceeds on a journey down Stereotype Lane:


“There’s ’Angry Black Woman,’ personified by Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, the famous-for-being-famous contestant on Donald Trump’s ’The Apprentice.’ Unlike Omarosa, Rice doesn’t fly off the handle at the slightest provocation or sideways glance. She isn’t constantly telling someone off or storming out of the room, or ’assuming the position’ of hands on hips, neck moving side to side, as the late Isabel Sanford used to do as ‘Weezy’ in the old sitcom ’The Jeffersons.’ When Sen. Barbara Boxer grilled Rice at her confirmation hearings with appropriate, tough questions about Iraq, Rice flashed anger only with her eyes. Her demeanor remained as cold as steel.”


Okay, have you got that? Condoleeza Rice is not Omarosa. Only a writer for the Washington Post would feel compelled to assure us that our elegant new secretary of state is not Omarosa.


Not satisfied with comparing Dr. Rice to the most annoying person ever to appear on Donald Trump’s reality TV show, Mr. Robinson continues his trek through various other alleged stereotypes: Jezebel, Earth Mother to Us All, and Black American Princess.


I dunno know about you, but I never thought Dr. Rice was like Omarosa. Never crossed my mind, in fact. But then I am a conservative, and I don’t think in liberal stereotypes.


Mr. Robinson does, though he concludes that Rice is “sui generis–just like every black woman in America.” Gee, that’s nice to know. Only problem is: I never doubted it.


If Mr. Robinson is an African-American himself, then all the more shame on him for thinking this way. He’ll be answering questions online today at 1 pm on www.washingtonpost.com. Inky urges you to give him an earful.