In 2004, New York magazine reported on a DC dinner party, at which Condoleezza Rice was reportedly overheard saying, “As I was telling my husb–” and then stopping herself abruptly, before saying, “As I was telling President Bush.” As the magazine explained it, those who heard her were quite surprised, though the slip seemed “more psychologically telling than incriminating.” In other words, no one seriously believes Bush and Rice are romantically involved.

But the alleged “husband” gaffe nevertheless points to a relationship that’s kind of … creepy. In fact, with this background in mind, consider Newsweek’s Marcus Mabry’s analysis on Rice’s loyalty to the president (as excerpted from his new biography of Rice).

…Rice was drawn to Bush. “First of all, I thought he was wonderful to be around,” she recalled, sitting on the couch in her State Department office. “He was warm and funny and easy to be around. I thought he had just an incredibly inquisitive mind … You could barely finish an explanation before he was digging into it.” Bush was also a bad boy. And Rice, according to friends and family, had a thing for bad boys. That was why, as a 20-year-old grad student, she preferred her second Fighting Irish football player boyfriend to her first, said Jane Robinett, Rice’s best Notre Dame friend: John “Dubie” Dubenetzky, cocky and handsome with wavy blond hair, was less deferential than Wayne Bullock, the sweet fullback who had moved Condi’s boxes into Lewis Hall. Rice’s friends insisted the attraction to Bush was platonic, but Brenda Hamberry-Green, her Palo Alto hairdresser, who had spent years commiserating with Rice over how hard it was for successful black women to find a good man, noticed a change when Rice started working for Bush. “He fills that need,” Hamberry-Green decided. “Bush is her feed.”

Like I said, creepy.