She Ain't No Uncle Ben's Rice
I don't know about you, but I got up early this morning so that I could watch Condoleezza Rice fight the powers that be in her 9/11 Commission questioning. Okay, so that might not have been the main event of your Holy Thursday, but it was still a pretty interesting event, if largely unnecessary.
Firstly, this entire public questioning was uncalled for, and a waste of tax dollars. The "crack" 9/11 Commission already had an extensive investigation back in 2001-2002, immediately following the attacks. And Dr. Rice (yeah, that's right... she's a doctor!) was already questioned privately, asked basically the same questions. But since our liberal media, and this liberal commission wants to blame G.W., they insisted that they do a public questioning. This gives these Capitol Hill Steppers three hours to drag Bush's name through the mud, when he isn't even to blame for the attacks. But, to Dr. Rice's defense, she handled herself admirably... fighting off the likes of both liberals and fellow conservatives put on the commission (although they all seemed to be on the attack, specifically Sen. Kerrey, who is not related to the Lurch-like Presidential Candidate).
Most will argue that this commission isn't trying to point the blame, it's trying to figure out what went wrong, and how we can fix it. That may have been the objective of this commission back when they first started this investigation, however now this is just finger pointing. The commission tries to blame G.W. for not taking action before the attacks, and not listening to crazy Dick Clarke (who is NOT the same as that immortal fellow who hosts the New Year's Rockin' Eve). However, they refused to realize that the real blame needs to be placed souly on two groups: the CIA/FBI, for not communicating whatsoever, and the Clinton Administraion, whose piss-poor foreign policy and refusal to capture Osama on more than one occassion left Bush with a huge mess to clean up.
Dr. Rice really did kick some butt today. Although most of the time she was too busy being interrupted by the commission... for some reason there was no moderator or judge to keep things in order. Reminds me of a gradeschool trial, you know, when the kids take matters into their own hands, and they question some kid but since there isn't a teacher around, they all go nuts. Yeah, it's like that. But there were a couple of times when Condoleezza fought back, and won... this is an actual transcript from her questioning with Bob Kerrey:
KERREY: Well, I think it's an unfortunate figure of speech because I think, especially after the attack on the Cole on the 12th of October, 2000, it would not have been swatting a fly. It would not have been -- we did not need to wait to get a strategic plan. Dick Clarke had in his memo on the 20th of January overt military operations. He turned that memo around in 24 hours, Dr. Clarke. There were a lot of plans in place in the Clinton administration -- military plans in the Clinton administration. In fact, since we're in the mood to declassify stuff, there was -- he included in his January 25th memo two appendices -- Appendix A: "Strategy for the elimination of the jihadist threat of Al Qaida," Appendix B: "Political military plan for Al Qaeda." So I just -- why didn't we respond to the Cole?
RICE: Well, we...
KERREY: Why didn't we swat that fly?
RICE: I believe that there's a question of whether or not you respond in a tactical sense or whether you respond in a strategic sense; whether or not you decide that you're going to respond to every attack with minimal use of military force and go after every -- on a kind of tit-for-tat basis. By the way, in that memo, Dick Clarke talks about not doing this tit-for-tat, doing this on the time of our choosing.
(KERREY eats something... perhaps his own feces)
RICE: I'm aware, Mr. Kerrey, of a speech that you gave at that time that said that perhaps the best thing that we could do to respond to the Cole and to the memories was to do something about the threat of Saddam Hussein. That's a strategic view...
(APPLAUSE)
KERREY: Snap, Dr. Rice... count it.
***Here is another excerpt***
RICE: We knew that Usama Bin Laden had been, in something that was provided to me, bragging that he was going to withstand any response and then he was going to emerge and come out stronger.
KERREY: But you're figuring this out. You've got to give a very long answer.
RICE: We simply believed that the best approach was to put in place a plan that was going to eliminate this threat, not respond to an attack.
KERREY: Let me say, I think you would have come in there if you said, "We screwed up. We made a lot of mistakes." You obviously don't want to use the M-word in here. And I would say fine, it's game, set, match. I understand that. But this strategic and tactical, I mean, I just -- it sounds like something from a seminar. It doesn't...
[RICE: M-word?
KERREY: You know what I'm talking about Dr. Rice... the M-word.
RICE: I'm sorry Senator Kerrey... to what are you referring?
KERREY: Masticate.
RICE: Masticate?
KERREY: Yes. Masticate. It sounds dirty, but it really just means to chew. It's alright... you can say it.]
RICE: I do not believe to this day that it would have been a good thing to respond to the Cole, given the kinds of options that we were going to have. And with all due respect to Dick Clarke, if you're speaking about the Delenda plan, my understanding is that it was, A, never adopted, and that Dick Clarke himself has said that the military portion of this was not taken up by the Clinton administration.
KERREY: Let me move into another area.
(KERREY walks into the hallway to continue his questioning)
Analysis on the overall questioning is all across the board. But basically, if you want to hear how great Dr. Rice was, then turn on FOX news or 104.7 Talk Radio. But if you want to hear how she got yelled at by the commission, check out CNN or NBC. If I am correct they will be questioning Clinton soon. This session will be taking place at the Playboy Mansion in California.