Vision Circle

I failed to remember the hearings, so I didn't watch. I watched most of the Thomas confirmation hearings (including the Hill testimony) and I watched most of the OJ trial.

I also abhor Bush (but I do admit that I admire Cheney for some reason). From what I've read, Rice held her own as I would have expected.

I suspect that we are sensitive to nuances that others might not be as sensitive to. In part, this comes from our defense mechanisms: we need those sensitivities to survive in a world that can be hostile to us. No doubt, there is also some racial identification as we see the broadcast (if Rice had a stereotypical accent, you probably would have a different reaction to the radio broadcast).

I think it is healthy to recognize those sensitivities and then to dig into the issues that are more important. I don't think that any administration could have prevented 9/11 -- it is what comes after that matters and Bush and Company have done a poor job -- primarily, in my opinion, because Bush was obsessed with taking out Saddam.

I think you got caught by the body language.

Wow, I must really be a self-hating Negro. The parts I watched just made me despise her even more. All of that double talk and parsing of words was just disgusting. Is there anyone in Washington besides Richard Clarke who is willing to take responsibility for anything?

I was disgusted and angered at the same time. The tone of questioning by those long-time critics of the administration didn't bother me in the least. The overly-soliticitous tone of all the Republican committee members DID bother me.

No surprise there!

I've heard talk about her 'performance', which all sounds to me like stupid expectations which will second guess whether or not she is 'intelligent and articulate'. Given that there's only so much that can come out in a couple hours, I expect that she would find a way to defend the White House and her good family friend, GW Bush, half of which is her job.

I don't think anybody is going to say that Condi Rice is the world's best CT expert, but it is important to know whether or not her personality is or is not a barrier to get the the best CT experts to work for the President. So I don't care so much about Rice' future outside of that context.

Again, all of these people we elected to do something other than fight AQ, so all of them will have been caught flat-footed at some point. If there's going to be some political fight about it, I don't hear anybody from the Bush Lied crowd saying the names of other CT people who should have been heeded. If Clarke hadn't stepped forward, nobody would be hounding Rice. So calls for her head are disingenuous from the perspective of lacking evidence of others more competent.

Think about it this way. Have a commission investigate the American public's political pressure on the Bush CT strategy. They've had since nine-eleven to come up with people better than Tom Ridge, Ashcroft, Rice, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld. Who are those people? Not even Kerry knows.

So Rice is a poor friggen NSA compared to who, and for what reasons? Sure she's flacking for Bush, that's her job. But what specifically did she do wrong in the prosecution of her duties, and who on the planet is leaking the stories to the media about what royal fuckups she's made? Nobody is leaking stories, so perhaps she's not such a goofball after all. Nobody has the names of people saying she has done anything which rises to the level of the Valerie Plame matter.

So this is not about Rice, it's just another litmus test on the Bush 43 White House.

Yet and still, there are details which ought to be pursued in the interest of getting our country better prepared to deal with the ghost of terrorism yet to come, rather than the ghost terrorism past. Clarke has written a book. Anybody else?

I think the whole thing is disingenuous. Richard Clarke's apology is a fraud. He can't take "responsibility" for 9-11 because he didn't know it was about to happen. Neither did Condi rice or Bush or Clinton or Kerry or you or I. I think that the fact that we have these discussions as if somebody knew what was about to happen and then decided not to prevent it is ridiculous. No matter what our political affiliation, we're all Americans. Nobody would have just let that happen for some ostensible political gain. Or at least, I'm not cynical enough to believe it.

As far as Condoleeza Rice as an individual, I hope my daughter grows up to be like her. That her politics don't mirror mine is not important. We throw around that phrase "strong Black woman" a lot, but what is strong if it's not the ability to remain true to your own convictions no matter what other people say?

What makes her "strong"? I don't see any personality traits to indicate that she is.

She's educated, but shilling for an administration doesn't make one strong. It makes you a shill. That job doesn't require strength, it requires a void where one's principles should be.

Avery, I think you're confusing blame for responsibility. In my view, that's what Clarke's apology was about, taking responsibility for failing in your job. I don't blame Bush, Clarke, Rice, Clinton, or whover for 9/11. Blame fall squarely on the 19 and OBL. I do expect my gov't to take responsibilty when it fails to protect us from threats. This is their number one job for God's sake. And the Bush WH has been shirking any responsibilty for its failure. Rice has been one of their primary voices in this charade. That is reprehensible to me.

So unlike you, I would never want my daughter to be like Rice when she's grown. When I have children, I want above all for them to have integrity, and Rice has shown through her shilling she has none. As Cobb states, it is part of her job but that doesn't mean i have to excuse it. She can have all of the poise and a wall full of degrees, but with out integrity, it is all a waste.

Integretity to whose ideals, yours or hers? I can undersand that lots of people don't agree with Rice's politics, or at least her political affiliations. For the point I was making, though, that's immaterial. Integrity is remaining true to your convictions. Now, I can't say that I'm all up on C-Rice like that, so I'll defer to people who may know more. Has she had a significant paradigm shift that would suggest a lack of integrity, or is she basically guilty by association?

As for Richard Clarke, I still believe it's all politics and smoke. It's easy to say what he should've known two years hence. In hindsight, everything is a clue. That's like when Republicans were trying to act like it was Clinton's fault because he didn't have OBL assassinated. Clinton didn't know, Clarke didn't know, none of 'em knew. And honestly, even if they had tried to make the changes necessary to prevent such an occurrence, e.g. the increased airport security we "enjoy" now, it wouldn't have gone over well. Without 9-11, there was no way we would have accepted such inconvenience, no matter what kind of threat existed.