Condoleezza Rice and Peter McKay
Photograph: Andrew Vaughan /APWhat is it about Condoleezza Rice? She can't step beyond the Washington Beltway without people giggling like schoolchildren passing notes round the back of the class, accusing her of fancying whichever world affairs conehead she happens to be meeting.
Back in April it was Jack Straw. The press added romantic mood music throughout his trip to Blackburn with the US secretary of state, until it seemed more like a cross between Roman Holiday and Love, Actually.
Now the media cherubs are firing their love darts around her meeting with Canada's foreign minister, Peter MacKay, who has the advantages over Mr Straw of being both single and the seven-times winner of Canada's coveted sexiest MP title.
While it's understandable that some may be attracted to Ms Rice's style and power - including at least one Guardian writer - there's something a bit icky and patronising about all the troubadour chatter.
The smallest things are enough to set off the gossip machine. Water coolers throughout Washington were set ablaze when she made a slip and described George Bush as her husband, while a fresh round of analysis was launched after a syndicated cartoon strip insinuated that she must be frigid or a lesbian.
The world seems to find it hard to accept that for someone of Condoleezza Rice's overweening ambition and drive, romantic life might ultimately be a distraction from the affairs of state.
She certainly wouldn't be the first senior politician to forsake all but the most perfunctory of personal lives for the sake of her job - so many senior officials have cited "spending time with my family" as their main reason for resigning that the phrase has long been a hoary cliche.
You wonder whether the personal life of a male politician of the same stature and single status - Edward Heath, say, or Pitt the Younger - would attract the same feverish excitement.
