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[langostino]

OT: Blue - on Condi

"and Rice is doing them no favors by refusing to testify under oath (especially while simultaneously appearing on every TV show on the air to protest how inappropriate it would be for her to discuss the issue)."

You may personally prefer that she testify publicly under oath, but that doesn't translate into it being good for the Bush administration. You can go on t.v., face a few softball questions, answer them if you like, or move right on and present your p.r. instead. either way, it's a p.r. campaign with no constraints on facing facts, answering questions, or even being truthful. which is why that's always been what she and others have pursued, even while ducking testifying under oath.

Condi isn't about to go under oath except as a last resort, because if she did, there is a chance the house of cards would come tumbling down. She's been lying her ass off and misleading the public from day one when she started promoting the notion that no one in the administration had even conceived of the notion of terrorists using airplanes as weapons.

That is a lie. Richard Clarke and the counter-terrorism team had multiple meetings with the FBI and CIA concerning the scenario of a terrorist hijacked jet being deliberately crashed into the Olympic Stadium during the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, and there were multiple memos and discussion in the years afterward, including briefings from Clarke to Rice. She'd be facing a lot more than just a political spin problem -- she'd be facing potential future prosecution if she were to go under oath.

BTW, whatever else may be leveled at this administration and the previous one as far as dereliction of duty, nobody that I know of, has made the assertion that anyone on the Bush team had been presented with the specific hypothetical of planes used as weapons aimed specifically at the WTC, although there seems to be some debate about an attack on the Pentagon having been among the scenarios since 1996.

As you know, I have nothing but contempt for Condi Rice. She's not just ethically bankrupt, she's incompetent, and engaged in an active cover-up of how that incompetence left the nation more vulnerable to terrorist attack than it should have been.