Dept. of No f***ing D'UH! [re Rice, Niger]

[DrBB]

"If Condi didn't know the exact state of intel on Saddam's nuclear programs . . . she wasn't doing her job," said Brookings Institution foreign policy specialist Michael E. O'Hanlon. "This was foreign policy priority number one for the administration last summer, so the claim that someone else should have done her homework for her is unconvincing."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51224-2003Jul26.html

JEESus I have been waiting for someone prominent in the media or government to point this out.

How can a National Security Advisor to the POTUS, over a year after 9/11, blithely claim "that information never got to our circles" and STILL HAVE A JOB? And what's worse, not have anyone in the media or government CALL her on it????? A report after all, about the veracity of a nuclear threat to the United States--"Oops, never heard about it, sorry, next question." Followed up, more or less, by, "Oh fine then. So listen, any cool plans for your vacation this summer?"

All I can say is, about effing TIME.

But what sickens me is the sneaking suspicion that this particular turd is only floating to the top of the US media toilet because a decision has been made in the inner sanctum that Rice has got to go for a number of reasons, only one of which is the fond hope that a prominent resignation would maybe put the final plug in the Niger Uranium dam leak (which it won't).

Still, it seems such an obvious, obvious point that the measure of how long it has taken to finally make it to this level is, in itself, evidence of something completely screwy in the politico-journalistic matrix.

</rant>

[molly]

1. Of course she knew - they all knew

I watched her the first time she lied and she is not very good at it. They will offer her up as the sacrifice and hope for the best. It won't work - too many have died - too much is at stake. This isn't like lying about a BJ.

[Booberdawg]

4. Indeed, they all knew

She will take it in the shorts for president cheney.

Now it would be even better for some right wing rag to come out and admit that they out and out lied from the start, and that cheney is the one calling the shots. Everyone knows it anyway.

[LoneStarLiberal]

2. Taking One For The PNAC Team

A Rice resignation is actually rather ideal in my estimation. Ideal for the PNACers, that is. If you think back to 9/11 and all that has gone on since, who have the two most estranged people who should be central to U.S. foreign policy been given who has really run the show? National Security Advisor Rice and Secretary of State Powell. The only times the administration ever runs them out in public is when they want some credibility from their moderates. Otherwise who is making the policy and who is being interviewed? The PNACers who run the show, of course: Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Kristol, Feith, and formerly Perle.

Rice is a perfect "take one for the team" for the PNACers: She is not one of theirs and she is in the perfect position to sew this all up and take the worst part of the heat off the President. A Rice resignation means they can move someone who IS in their neo-con club into the National Security Advisor position, possibly Bolton from State ( as I believe a Salon article recently suggested).

Powell has been in this same position for a long time. Once things actually began happening that were his direct brief, he has been marginalized by the PNACers. I think only his military background has kept him from throwing a runaway screaming shitfit over what has gone on. It's too bad he didn't because his silence and his occasional spin cycles in front of the press have caused him to lose any credibility as a voice of reason in the Bush administration.

[Punkingal]

3. I hope she goes......

whatever the reason. She has always made me :puke: