Why Should Condi Testify When Clarke Refused?
Tue March 30th, 2004 01:26 MSTThe Democrats, the press and some members of the 9-11 commission are howling for Condoleeza Rice to testify publicly under oath to the committee, even though she has already given 15 hours of private testimony. The White House is resisting, saying they don’t want to set a bad precedent.
The New York Times, the bastion of truth and respectability, lists 2 past instances in which National Security Advisers have testified publicly, not to an independent commission, but to Congress. Furthermore, they don’t point out that these cases were both criminal matters, and no National Security Adviser has ever testified under these conditions about policy matters. Furthermore, the principle to be protected is the ability of advisors to be able to discuss anything, no matter how politically unpalatable, with the President. The New York Times also ignores that issue.
To the Times, the case is closed. Others did it, Condi should too.
But with the New York Times these days, not all the news is fit to print.
The Drudge Report adds the following relevant tidtbit that the Times must have lost to computer failure or something:
On July 29, 1999, Richard Clarke was scheduled to appear before the Senate Special Committee on the Y2K computer scare.
Senator Bob Bennett (R-UT) chaired the hearing, and made the announcement that Richard Clarke would not be appearing before the committee — due to a directive by the National Security Council.
…
The congressional record; Senator Bennett:
….
Last night, into the evening, we were notified that the legal staff of the National Security Council had determined that it would be inappropriate for Mr. Clarke to appear. I have just spoken to him on the telephone. The rule apparently is that any member of the White House staff who has not been confirmed is not to be allowed to testify before the Congress. They can perform briefings, but they are not to give testimony. And that in response to that rule, Mr. Clarke will not be coming.
The reason the commission wants Condi to testify is due to the same Mr. Clarke’s self-refuted claims! Mr. Clarke refused to testify using exactly the reasons that Condi is using.
The irony is stunning. So is the New York Times journalistic incompetence.
My morning “Pravda” newspaper carries an outsized and intentionally clownish cartoon-caricature of Condi Rice’s face, and depicts a large Seal of the President of the United States securely stamped over the woman’s closed mouth. The cartoon is of course demeaning, if not downright tasteless and insulting, and carries with it the Democrats’ latest culture-war idea that Republicans are perhaps ‘hiding’ something in persuading Condi to refuse to testify publicly (if in fact that’s what the White House is actually doing). As most Americans are aware, for the past week or so virtually an endless battery of Dems’ have squealed like hungry barnyard animals for Condi’s head in their ongoing attempt to humiliate the woman.
If most Americans would be totally honest with themselves, it’s doubtful that they’ve yet forgotten John Kerry’s refusal to ‘name the foreigners’ who wish George Bush ill, or Susan McDougal’s refusal to testify before Ken Starr.
Yet, in another newspaper column this morning, the Associated Press produced a byline which reads: “Saddam under guard, but stoically not talking.” Moreover, the article maintains that not only is Saddam not talking, he’s having a “good time” tormenting his captors with his silence.
I therefore ask the same question of all of you–Democrats and Republicans, alike: Just who, in fact, are the Democrats and their press minions’ SUPPORTING in the war on terrorism?
Any questions or comments? Or should I say, “Any doubts?”
Richard Clarke either is shoveling the hoo-hah now or was shoveling it two years ago. In the fun of pointing out the inconsistencies, it is important to remember that in 2002 and through the ’90s he was on the side of the angels. Rich Lowry makes this point well in NRO. It has also started to seep into the mainstream group-think. On Monday, Dick Polman in a fron-page Philadephia Inquirer thumbsucker judged that Clarke is a particular problem for the administration because “Clarke hits Bush from the right”.
Sean,
Interesting. Yes, Clarke is an equal opportunity back stabber. He went after Bush unfairly (the comparison of emphasis under Clinton vs. Bush) because he was judged incompetent or over-rated by Condi. He did much of the other stuff because he has a grudge against Congress. Basically he went after everyone who got in his way. The fact that many of these attacks are against Clinton and Congress doesn’t do Bush much good because they aren’t running for re-election, and because the press bias will ignore them.
Perhaps I do not understand you correctly but it seems to me that a policy which prohibits Congressional testimony from unconfirmed officials would not apply to somebody like Condi Rice. Also, if the White House had really been claiming an important principle in its resfusal to have Rice tesitfy, then why did it give in. It seems to me that administration memebers can testify when given the order/permission of the president and now Rice willl testify because Karen Hughes has determined that it is in the political interest of the administration. The precendent that has kept National security advisors from being compelled to testify exists primarily so that they will not have to appear before congress every five minutes like other cabinet level advisors.
I, while admittedly biased, see little inconsistency in Clarke’s claims that as an administation official he was obliged to emphasize what points he did in the press briefing(s) in question. I think the “policy” of this administration is to exaggerate or mislead until they are caught and then to explain why they were not misleading anybody. and my belief is not so important as the fact that there are many like me who have little or no trust in what this administration says.
You say: Perhaps I do not understand you correctly but it seems to me that a policy which prohibits Congressional testimony from unconfirmed officials would not apply to somebody like Condi Rice.
Why in the world would that be? She is an unconfirmed official.
You are wrong about the precedent. It exists so that the President can ask and discuss anything with his advisors without fear that it will be made public and used politically. This is because presidents have to talk about things that can be very unpopular or can be taken badly out of context, and a precedent to allow testimony would mean that they presidents could no longer have free discussions with advisors. It would mean that they would not be able freely get advice from anyone, destroying a critical part of the balance of powers. Bill Clinton’s administration used exactly this same logic to prevent Clarke from testifying.
Why is Condi testifying now? Because the political pressure from the demogogues and the anti-Bush press has gotten too strong, because 9-11 was a unique event (although no more unique than 1941 where partisans did not force the inquisition during the war), and because she was able to secure various conditions to help maintain the privilege.
Bush is hurt either way. If she testifies, in spite of these guarantees, she does set a precedent, which Bush didn’t want. But if she doesn’t, then “Bush is hiding something” becomes the Democrat cheer. So the commission, the Democrats, and the lap-dog press have pushed the Administration into going against their principles. And they should be ashamed for that pressure, but I guarantee you they are not.
Do you approve of this pressure?
Think about this: The commission has had 15 hours in which they could ask Rice anything they wanted. Why do they want her to appear in public for four hours to repeat her testimony?
There is only one reason: to try and catch her in any discrepancy with the intent of politically harming the Bush campaign. So right now, Condi has to waste her time reviewing her testimony so that she won’t make any mistakes on little details that anyone would have trouble remembering, instead of doing her real job.
If the commission was serious, it would do as was done after Pearl Harbor, and not hold the hearings in a critical political period. Are you aware that the Pearl Harbor hearings were delayed until 1946? If not, why not? Given this information, who is acting more potentially - the Commission and those forcing Condi to testify, or the White House?
So you need to ask yourself - why are the 9-11 hearings being held in the middle of a presidential election campaign? There can be only one answer: to harm the re-election chances of Bush. The Democrats have nothing to lose, because blame that falls on Clinton will not fall on Kerry.
Now, regarding your bias. You seem to be willing to believe not just that Clarke’s instructions were to emphasize, but that Clarke’s position allowed him to outright lie. He was either lying in front of the commission, or lying in front of the reporters. So we are to take the word of a confirmed liar? Now, he is a Clintonesque sort of skilled liar, where he lies a lot with adjectives and impressions, which is why he probably will not be charged with perjury for the contradictions between his public and his classified testimony (did you know about THAT?), although it is being reviewed.
Now I realize that lying in this election season is the Democrat stock in trade. I have spent plenty of effort (as a Vietnam Vet) disproving some of the lies about Bush’s military service (did you notice that ALL of the claims have been disproven? That it was the democrats who were lying about Bush being a “deserter” and “AWOL?”) and investigating John Kerry’s horribly dishonest and slanderous behavior in 1970 and 1971.
But the policy of this Administration is to fight a war on terrorism, something the prior Administration, with Clarke as the senior guy, failed to do well at all.
You might ask yourself about a guy who was in charge of counter-terrorism for the last eight years under Clinton, and 8 months under Bush (remember, the Florida fiasco meant that the Bush administration was over a month late in getting started), a bureaucrat whose policies clearly would not have prevented 9-11, and a bureaucrat who was therefore carrying blame for 9-11, which is why he apologized; a guy who is not given a high position he wants; a guy who miraculously has a book ready for publication right at the same time as the commission is having hearings. Don’t you see something just a little, tiny bit fishy there?
And this is the guy who said that terrorism was number one priority under Clinton, but who complained in his book that it was not. Furthermore, from his other statements, and other information about the Clinton administration, we know for a fact that terrorism was not the top priority.
The man is a walking self contradiction, and you distrust the Bush administration?
I wonder what you read that has led to this great distrust of the Bush administration? Do you get your news from the New York Times or NBC or some source like that? Was it the BS about WMD’s? If so, look here and here.
I know a couple of things: Holding hearings in an election year is a political issue, not intended to arrive at truth; the Democrats have gone beyond the pale in the level of dishonesty in their attacks on Bush; and, John Kerry isn’t a man I would trust to carry my suitcase, and whom I would spit on given the chance because of his actions after he and I were out of the service: being a leader of a group so radical that its members with him present (which he denied recently and was proven to be lying again) discussed assassinating US Senators, acting as a propagandist and spokeman for our enemy while we were at war, and in the process slandering every Vietnam Veteran and our country, refusing to release his military medical records, after having his minions demand every detail of Bush’s military career.
I cannot tell you how angry I am at the unprecedented level of viciousness used this year by the Democratic machine. It tells me that they are so desperate for power that they will stoop to any means, no matter how unprecedented or vicious or dishonest.
John has hit the nail squarely on the head, Matthew: If, indeed, Democrats are really seeking ‘justice’ or ‘truth’ in the matter of 9-11 ‘complicity,’ why then are they so hell-bent to argue now, within mere months of the coming general election? With every passing day, Democrats seek to publicly attack Bush, the occupation of Iraq, the Constitution, the Pledge of Allegiance, our heterosexual community, etc., etc., etc.–and all this does is to provide breath to those who hate us. I doubt any of us will ever see the images of those charred Americans hanging from that bridge overpass, but it’s quite likely that when those little Iraqi kids shouted “Fallujah will be an American graveyard!” they were urged on by their parents, who, in turn, are urged on by John Kerry and his vast media empire.
I’m afraid I’ve gotta’ ask something of you, Matthew: More and more, the media attacks and attacks Republicans, often over the most trivial of matters, and Americans die overseas in increasing numbers. Meanwhile the bad guys abroad are increasingly emboldened to ‘fight on.’ Where have we seen this before?
If Democrats succeed in losing the peace in Iraq, as they succeeded in humiliating us in Vietnam, then we’ll soon be fighting in our own streets.
But then, maybe that’s what Kerry and his folks have sought all along.
John,
Two things about the campaign to discredit GWB’s decision to take out Saddam:
1–Is it my recollection–or was it just my assessment of the situation in late 2002–that WMD figured in the administration’s thinking not so much because Saddam might use them as give them to some less traceable third party? (Of course, the blackmail possibilities re Saudi Aabia, Kuwait, Israel, etc. were not to be sniffed at). It was, I think, only when the White House made the effort to bring the UNSC along that opponents and the press made WMD the focus of attention, because of the UN inspectors and the “need to let them do their job” rationale for more dilly-dallying.
2–I have heard it repeatedly said that there is “no link between al Qaeda and Saddam”, even from supporters of the war. For instance, I read just this week some expert declaring that it had been determined post-war that the jet-liner used to train terrorists was nothing of the sort. I figured the “no lnk” line was one of those “true but irrelevant” red-herrings.
Then I read Richard Miniter on the omissions of Richard Clarke in OpinionJournal.
and
Miniter should be reliable on this. With all this our Republican leaders are letting the press and the Democrats qibble about whom Atta met in Prague?