Former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice entered Rice University's Tudor Fieldhouse to a standing ovation from the invitation-only crowd of several hundred professionals and students Tuesday night.

Rice, who last visited the university's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy three years ago, sat down with Houston PBS's Ernie Manouse for a question-and-answer session and took questions from the crowd that ranged from life advice to Russian policy analysis before signing copies of her new memoir, No Higher Honor.

Rice talked about her relationship with George W. Bush, from meeting him before his presidential campaign at Kennebunkport in 1998 ("He'd fish, I'd talk about China") through serving in his administration. Rice described their "relationship of trust" and said that she always felt she could be candid with him — in the right way.

"You can criticize the president, but you don't do it when there is anyone else in the room and you definitely don't do it in a way where it's going to be in The New York Times," Rice said.

On being an African-American woman in a position of power, Rice said she often found her gender an asset, especially in the Middle East, where conservative clerics who wouldn't shake her hand also asked her to meet with their granddaughters as a positive role model. She admitted that rising in a male-dominated field often meant she had to be twice as good as others, a refrain she said she was taught by her parents growing up in segregated Birmingham, Ala.

"If by the time you're Secretary of State you let someone treat you bad because you're a woman, it's your fault because you've got plenty of arsenal," Rice said.

The one time she was very cognizant of her role as a black leader was during Hurricane Katrina, she said. Rice, who was heavily criticized for shopping for shoes in New York as the storm hit, said that she thought she had set up all the necessary systems to be in place before taking a vacation, but returned early when she saw what was happening in New Orleans on the news.

"I knew that this was a tragedy that had an undeniably black face," Rice said. "As the highest ranking African American in the cabinet, I thought, 'How could I be so dumb?'"

Rice didn't say much about the men she served with (and said nothing about the current Republican presidential candidates) but she did dish a bit about some world leaders. According to her, French president Nicolas Sarkozy is "a bit of a whirling dervish" and most popular perceptions of leaders have a grain of truth to them.

She recounted the anecdote from her book about how Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had a "creepy fascination" with her, and how she had to decline his offer to meet alone in a tent when she visited Libya to re-establish relations. Gaddafi ended their meeting by presenting a video he'd had made of her meeting with various world leaders, set to music he'd commissioned called Black Flower in the White House.

Rice, a Soviet specialist, described Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin as "very tough" and a bit intimidating. She recounted a visit when she told him that escalating tensions with Georgia would be detrimental to U.S.-Russian relations, and he rose and stood over her in response. Rice said her immediate reaction was to stand too — and at 5'11'' in heels, Rice said "it wasn't exactly eye to eye."