So Does This Mean She's Not A Lesbian Now?

I can testify that being single past a certain age does keep people constantly guessing - particularly if you don't have a steady or visible boyfriend. Condi has certainly gotten her share of speculation and accusation regarding her sexuality. Now the pendulum has moved back in the other direction and they are linking her to a Canadian diplomat.

But reporters tend to get bored pretty fast — there is only so much ink anyone can devote to softwood lumber trade spats and overfishing in the North Atlantic. And a bored reporter is a gossipy reporter, as demonstrated by the chatter last year after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld took a dinner cruise up a Norwegian fjord and sipped wine with his counterpart, the Norwegian defense minister, Kristin Krohn Devold. (She gave him a sweater; he gave her a designer bag.)

If you believe the blogs, Mr. MacKay has been sweet on Ms. Rice since their first meeting in Washington last year. “Peter McKay has a crush... ” said a headline on the Web site NowPublic, atop a giant photo of Ms. Rice, “...on Condoleezza Rice.” The subhead continued: “Well, they are both single after all.’’

Ms. Rice and Mr. MacKay even made the “Hot and Not” list in a column in the Toronto newspaper The Globe and Mail on Saturday. “Hot: Peter MacKay and Condoleezza Rice,” the column, Ottawa Notebook, read.

The two do keep offering up tantalizing tidbits and comments to take out of context and misconstrue. For instance, after the Rome meeting in July, Ms. Rice gave Mr. McKay a ride aboard her plane to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for a conference with Southeast Asian countries. O.K., the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, got a lift, too, but he looks like, well, a diplomat.

On Tuesday morning, Ms. Rice and Mr. MacKay strolled up to their side-by-side daises to talk to the folks here. “I am just delighted to have Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, here in my hometown,” gushed a beaming Mr. MacKay, wearing a pearl gray suit, pink and blue striped tie.

He switched to bad French, even to some American ears, and said something about Longfellow’s poem “Evangeline.” He mentioned Nova Scotia’s rich black history, citing the “black loyalist community, Canada’s oldest community of African heritage.”

Then, he said, “Something else I’ve learned about Secretary Rice is she loves the cool Atlantic breezes here in Nova Scotia, and she left the window open last night.” The audience tittered.

At the end of his speech, he took off his glasses, turned to Ms. Rice and said, “Please come back again.”