Rice Pudding

What a sticky mess, our dear Condi's gotten herself into.

She'd just love to be placed under oath, in public, before the 9/11 commission - really - if it weren't that no other sitting National Security Advisor had ever done the same. So, instead of spilling her guts before one of the most important bodies ever created by Congress, she is forced to go before the talking heads and slander Richard Clarke.

"Nothing would be better, from my point of view, than to be able to testify," Ms. Rice said yesterday in an interview on CBS's "60 Minutes." "But there's an important principle involved." She added that her private comments to the commission would be the same as what she would say in public. In response to Mr. Clarke's public apology to Sept. 11 victims' families last week, she said that she would like to meet with the families to answer questions.

The regret just oozes from every pore in her pinched, angry face.

Even our friends in the SCLM are starting to go with the meme that Rice's recalcitrance is starting to hurt BushCo. And every measured, intelligent, factual statement by Mr. Clarke only serves to contrast the shrill whining of administration attempts at rebuttal and the unprofessionalism of their gross character assassination. His calls to release all data from his work on terrorism prior to 9/11 seem well reasoned and calm compared to the shrieking of Condi and others for the release of limited, carefully selected (and selective) parts of the record.

Mr. Clarke said he "would welcome" the declassification of his testimony before a congressional committee looking into events around Sept. 11, and hopes the White House will release even more documents that he claims will bolster his credibility and his charges.

In addition to his testimony, Mr. Clarke called on the administration to release Ms. Rice's testimony; all pre-Sept. 11 e-mails between Mr. Clarke and Ms. Rice; a Jan. 25, 2001 antiterrorism memo sent by him to Ms. Rice; and a Sept. 4 national-security directive that he says embraces his memo's recommendations. The two latter documents, he said, show the administration "wasted months when we could have had some action" in ratcheting up the war on terrorism.