"Gone in 60 Minutes"
Condaleeza Rice's performance on "60 Minutes" was so poor, so not credible, it boggles the mind. Madam Cura thought she sounded as if she didn't believe half of what she was saying. And her "facts" were so easily disputed, the Center for American Progress issued an email refuting her claims by 7:41 PM last night. Here's a web page version of the email.
As I said last week, the NSC spent three months with this book. It had to be known at the highest circles of the White House that the book was going to be explosive, and yet their response just continues to look more and more pathetic. Josh Marshall thinks it's because of the insularity of this administration, but I also think it's because Clarke does seem to have them dead to rights and they simply can't figure out how to handle it.
Scroll down Marshall's site and read his view on Rice's legalistic language regarding why she won't testify "on policy" under oath before the commission. Nevertheless, I'd place even money that Bush, Cheney, and Rice will get over their "principles" and have her appear before the commission.
"Republican commissioner John F. Lehman, who has written extensively on separation-of-power issues, said that 'the White House is making a huge mistake' by blocking Rice's testimony and decried it as 'a legalistic approach.'
"The White House is being run by a kind of strict construction of interpretation of the powers of the president,' he said on ABC's 'This Week.' 'There are plenty of precedents that the White House could use if they wanted to do this.'"
Meanwhile, Bill Frist -- who is appalled that Clarke would write a book capitalizing on the Sept. 11 attacks, yet showed no such reticence himself in the weeks after the still unsolved anthrax attacks in 2001 (read the boffo reviews -- seems to have stepped in it when it comes to demanding that Clarke's congressional testimony be declassified.
From the Washington Post story, "Clarke said he would support declassifying the earlier testimony as long as it was not done selectively. Clarke, appearing on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' also said Rice's testimony before the commission should be declassified, as well as a key memo he gave Rice on Jan. 25, 2001, the national security directive on al Qaeda developed eight months later, and all e-mails Clarke sent to Rice and her deputy."
A bad week for the Pres. and the GOP. A week in which intimidation, bluster, and simply refusing to own up to mistakes just weren't adequate to the job of silencing critics. Hopefully this is the beginning of an encouraging trend.
As I said last week, the NSC spent three months with this book. It had to be known at the highest circles of the White House that the book was going to be explosive, and yet their response just continues to look more and more pathetic. Josh Marshall thinks it's because of the insularity of this administration, but I also think it's because Clarke does seem to have them dead to rights and they simply can't figure out how to handle it.
Scroll down Marshall's site and read his view on Rice's legalistic language regarding why she won't testify "on policy" under oath before the commission. Nevertheless, I'd place even money that Bush, Cheney, and Rice will get over their "principles" and have her appear before the commission.
"Republican commissioner John F. Lehman, who has written extensively on separation-of-power issues, said that 'the White House is making a huge mistake' by blocking Rice's testimony and decried it as 'a legalistic approach.'
"The White House is being run by a kind of strict construction of interpretation of the powers of the president,' he said on ABC's 'This Week.' 'There are plenty of precedents that the White House could use if they wanted to do this.'"
Meanwhile, Bill Frist -- who is appalled that Clarke would write a book capitalizing on the Sept. 11 attacks, yet showed no such reticence himself in the weeks after the still unsolved anthrax attacks in 2001 (read the boffo reviews -- seems to have stepped in it when it comes to demanding that Clarke's congressional testimony be declassified.
From the Washington Post story, "Clarke said he would support declassifying the earlier testimony as long as it was not done selectively. Clarke, appearing on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' also said Rice's testimony before the commission should be declassified, as well as a key memo he gave Rice on Jan. 25, 2001, the national security directive on al Qaeda developed eight months later, and all e-mails Clarke sent to Rice and her deputy."
A bad week for the Pres. and the GOP. A week in which intimidation, bluster, and simply refusing to own up to mistakes just weren't adequate to the job of silencing critics. Hopefully this is the beginning of an encouraging trend.
posted by John at 12:43 PM
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