Vice-President Dick Cheney won’t be on the Republican ticket in 2004, but National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice will.

So says William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, who joined former Cheney spokeswoman Juleanna Glover Weiss, former Indianapolis mayor Stephen Goldsmith, and former Wyoming senator Alan Simpson at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government on Monday for a panel discussion on the future of the Republican Party. Kristol figures that Rice has the stature and expertise to be a strong vice-presidential candidate. Of course, Rice would also be the first African-American woman to run for the presidency on a major-party ticket.

"Foreign policy is key," Kristol said, reached after the forum. "She’s been the most important foreign-policy adviser. Why shouldn’t she become vice-president?"