(March 28, 2004 -- 09:34 PM EDT // link // print)
Department of threading it awfully fine.
From tonight's 60 Minutes interview ...
ED BRADLEY: The secretary of state, defense, the director of the
CIA, have all testified in public under oath before the commission.
If - if you can talk to us and other news programs, why can't you
talk to the commission in public and under oath?
CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Nothing would be better, from my point of view,
than to be able to testify. I would really like to do that. But there
is an important principle here edit it is a longstanding principle
that sitting national security advisers do not testify before the
Congress.
ED BRADLEY: But there are some people who look at this and say, "But
this - this was an unprecedented event. Nothing like this ever happened
to this country before. And this is an occasion where you can put
that executive privilege aside. It's a big enough issue to talk in
public."
CONDOLEEZZA RICE: It is an unprecedented event. We've said that many,
many times. But this commission is rightly not concentrating on what
happened on the day of September 11.. So, this is not a matter of
what happened on that day, as extraordinary as it is - as it was.
This is a matter of policy. And we have yet to find an example of
a national security advisor, sitting national security advisor, who
has - been willing to testify on matters of policy.
To call this explanation tortured is to give human rights abusers a bad name.
Look again at these last two sentences of Rice's Advertisement flagrantly bogus argument: "This is a matter of policy. And we have yet to find an example of a national security advisor, sitting national security advisor, who has - been willing to testify on matters of policy."
Each word of these two sentences was chosen to fit an unhelpful set of facts.
Sandy Berger twice testified in 1990s -- once in 1994 on Haiti and then again in 1997 during the Asian campaign contribution hearings. In 1994 though Berger was Deputy National Security Advisor. Constitutionally, it's not at all clear to me why a Deputy National Security Advisor should be more obliged to testify before congress than his boss. But that's their out in this case.
Then in 1997, when he was NSC Director, he was testifying in the course of an investigation into a scandal -- but certainly one with policy implications, since I'm pretty sure what they were asking him about was whether money affected policy. Why this is a constitutionally significant distinction is lost on me too. But again, that's their out -- it wasn't about 'policy'.
National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski testified before congress in 1980. But again, that was in the context of an investigation -- into an accusation that Billy Carter, the then-president's brother, had tried to influence the US government on behalf of Libya.
But, again, that's not 'policy'. So apparently by Rice's standard, it doesn't count.
I think there's a growing realization in Washington this weekend that Rice is going to testify, whether she realizes it yet or not. Among several reasons why is the fact that her rationales for not testifying are just becoming more and more visibly bogus, drawing tortured distinctions of no clear constitutional import.
She might just as easily have argued that they have found no record of a National Security Advisor named Rice testifying before congress, or a female NSC Director testifying, or one who served under a Republican president. Each would have made about as much sense. And on top of this you have the fact that the separation of powers argument is questionable at best because the commission itself is not an arm of congress.
-- Josh Marshall
