Conason: Tough Questions for Condi Rice

[kskiska]

Condoleezza Rice has told everyone willing to listen that she wishes for nothing more than the opportunity to testify in public before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. (The President’s national security adviser didn’t say whether she was eager to subject herself to the penalties of perjury, as the co-chairmen of the 9/11 commission insisted.) Now the White House has announced that her desire to testify will be satisfied in the near future, and that she will indeed be sworn.

Until now, Ms. Rice had accepted the President’s decision—however reluctantly and despite her personal yearning for candor—that she would be deprived of the chance to testify before the commission. Nothing less than the Constitution itself was at risk, in the opinion of the White House counsel. "I would certainly hope that everyone understands that this long-standing separation between the President’s closest personal advisers and the Congress has to be maintained," she lamented on March 28 on television.

How could she have known that this essential Constitutional barrier would suddenly disappear less than 48 hours later? Such magical lawyering is likely to annoy the frustrated members of the 9/11 commission, who have been treated with contempt by the White House. One of those frustrated commissioners might even ask Ms. Rice about the Oval Office discussions that preceded the President’s turnaround on her testimony. Was President Bush influenced by the increasing political pressure to let her testify? Did an internal poll set Karl Rove’s hair on fire?

Those would be small-minded, mean-spirited, gotcha-type questions, which the commissioners must try to resist more successfully than a couple of them did when Richard A. Clarke testified. There are plenty of substantive questions they should put to Ms. Rice.

more…
http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/conason.asp

[jean]

1. When does she appear before the commission? I can't wait for ben Veniste!

[Disturbed]

2. No Hard Ball

She will get the nerf ball treatment. None will dare to play hard ball with this black woman and make it appear that she is a vic.

In a month from now Bushco will have weathered this storm and
be full sail again. Unless something comes up that punches a huge hole in their ship they will sail in the harbor smoothly.

[jean]

3. now that is disturbing! I think the waters will remain very choppy

[Miss Authoritiva]

4. "Ironically" is not the word

"'Ironically,...they rarely dwelt upon the one threat that would eventually change their lives and those of the rest of America, terrorism.'"

Foolishly....perversely....stupidly....blindly....stubbornly....These are far more appropriate words than "ironically."

As the saying goes, reasonable minds can differ. If Rice and her cohort wanted to focus on Korea, Iraq, et al, that was their prerogative. However, ignoring or otherwise failing to hear the warnings of Clarke and Tennet is the point at which reasonable minds cannot differ.