背景知识：

Condi turns her back on dream job

CONDOLEEZZA RICE has spent months perfecting a tactic to deflect questions about her long-term political prospects, saying that the post she really covets is that of National Football League commissioner.　

“If that job comes open, I’m gone,” the US Secretary of State told one recent interviewer. The tease continued last month when Dr Rice, an avid follower of the Cleveland Browns（克利夫兰布朗球队）, was spotted sitting in the commissioner’s box at the Super Bowl in Detroit.

　 But this week Dr Rice encountered an unexpected problem in the form of Paul Tagliabue, the man who has been in charge of the league for the past 16 years: he has announced that he intends to retire in July. Bob Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, could scarcely contain his excitement about the possibility of her succeeding, saying: “I think Condoleezza Rice would be great! I’d invest in any company she’d be running.”

So, will she really swap her position as the most powerful woman in the world, earning just $200,000 (£114,000) a year, to be the most powerful woman in American football earning up to $10 million a year? No, she will not.

Her spokesman, Sean McCormack, has sadly had to bring the game to an end. “She thinks football is the greatest sport on earth but even if she were approached for the job — which she has not been — she would have to decline. She still has many things she wants to accomplish as Secretary of State,” a job which she was enjoying “at the moment”.

The qualifier tagged on to his statement will be familiar to those who have heard a similar formulation of words used to describe her lack of interest in running for president in 2008.

Although she has never been elected to any office, she is enormously popular among voters and there is a growing “draft Condi” movement, which believes Ms Rice may be needed to stop Hillary Clinton taking over the White House. George Bush, the 43rd President, is even said to have nicknamed her “44”. But Dr Rice would have to overcome two taboos to become the first female — an unmarried one at that — and the first black president. It is more likely she will be asked to join someone else’s ticket as vice-presidential candidate.

In the meantime, she is keeping her options open by softening her public image by discussing her love of sport and R&B music, rather than the policy papers and concert piano with which she has more usually been associated.

She has also made an appearances in a fitness video and turned up at football games, sometimes escorted by Gene Washington, a former National Football League star.

　　　据《泰晤士报》22日报道，美国国务卿赖斯多次在公开场合表示，她梦寐以求的职位是美国国家橄榄球大联盟（NFL）主席一职。本周，一直掌管NFL的保罗·塔利亚布突然宣布他计划在今年7月退休，“新英格兰爱国者”橄榄球队的老板鲍勃·克拉夫特几乎无法按捺赖斯可能成为塔利亚布继任者的兴奋之情：“我认为康多莉扎·赖斯是最棒的！”liuxuepaper.com