Thursday, April 08, 2004
First Thoughts on Condi
Blame The Clenis™!
"We believed very strongly that an inadequate response would embolden the terrorists"—or words to that effect.
This in response to Gov. Thompson's half-assed question meant to give Ms. Condi a chance to alibi why the Bush administration had absolutely no response to the Cole bombing. Granted it had happened on the Clinton watch, but only two months before they left office, and they passed onto the Bush administration their policy, which was well along in establishing on an "actionable" basis that Al Queda and Osama were to be blamed, and such action would have included following through on their strategic previous promise to the Taliban that were there to be another attack, like the Cole, that could be tied to AQ and Osama, the Taliban government would be held responsible and be the object of direct sanctioning action, including possible military action.
Note that once the Bushies had the confirmation that it was the usual suspects, which had to be early in their administration, they did nothing - nothing strategic, nothing tactical. That was the distinction Condi made for Sen. Kerrey when he also asked about the Cole. Essentially, the Clinton administration had determined that they too needed to frame a strategic response to the Cole, for which they needed to pin down responsibility to the Afghanistan based Taliban, but they ran out of time. The Bush administration at the highest levels—Cheney, Wolfie, Rummy, and Condi—decided a response to the Cole profited them nothing, and they didn't need to worry about getting criticism because Clinton could always be blamed.
Note the assumption that whatever was good for the Bush administration was what was good for America. Note also, that their lack of response did not keep them and their surrogates, and with Condi's testimony today those at the heart of this administration have to be included here, from blaming the Cole on Clinton, and basking in the ignominy that accrued to their predeccesors' so-called lack of response, though their lack of response was based on better intelligence than the Clinton administration had, but for exactly the same reasons. Audacious arrogance!
"You cannot depend on the chance that something will fall out of an agency, a meeting, or whatever the hell those stupid Clinton people claim they were doing when they were at THEIR so-called battlestations," or words to that effect.
This at the end, in response to Thompson. Yes, but what you can depend on is that nothing, no information, no dots to be connected, will fall from nothing, from no meetings, from a total lack of attention.
Condi revels in heaping scorn on "process," that favorite of the do-nothing Clintons; that process is substance and substance is process is too post-modern for Condi; maybe why she doesn't see that saying what your policy is, talking about grand strategic visions, "framing" arguments are not the same, though not unrelated to, TAKING ACTION! The Clinton battlestations had worked to thwart any AQ attacks on American soil for the eight years following the first Trade Center bombing; maybe until they had their own doubtless superior battlestations up and running, it wouldn't have been a bad idea to continue some of what had worked for the previous administration.
Note also how meaningless were those daily briefings of the President by CIA chief Tenant. And not because of any fault of the President necessarily. The Clinton administration's daily meetings at the next level down made more sense.
The emphasis on the August 6 briefing of the President by Condi in Crawford is amusing - as if anyone really expects this President to connect any dots on his own. If Condi et al didn't connect the dots, they weren't going to be connected.
Initial response to this morning: Condi seemed defensive, had clearly come with talking points she looked forward to using to gain control of the hearing. She looked combative, contemptuous; where was all that charm - or do they just mean her smile, which I'll give her, is an exceedingly nice one. And note that she gave them exactly three hours and not a minute more. The rightwing will revel in her contempt for this process and the Commissioners tasked with carrying it out. I don't think most other Americans will. I don't think she beat back Clarke, and I don't think this is over.
One indication - MSNBC has the four widows on right now, and they are ripping all kinds of new orifices in Condi's testimony. Mindy Kleinberg has just asked the question that even if no dots could be connected before 9/11, what about that morning, what about the President finally hearing that two different airplanes had crashed into the WTC, wasn't that the time that any decently prepared administration would have finally had to connect the dots, in which case, why did President Bush read a story to a class of children?
More later: let us know what you thought.
"We believed very strongly that an inadequate response would embolden the terrorists"—or words to that effect.
This in response to Gov. Thompson's half-assed question meant to give Ms. Condi a chance to alibi why the Bush administration had absolutely no response to the Cole bombing. Granted it had happened on the Clinton watch, but only two months before they left office, and they passed onto the Bush administration their policy, which was well along in establishing on an "actionable" basis that Al Queda and Osama were to be blamed, and such action would have included following through on their strategic previous promise to the Taliban that were there to be another attack, like the Cole, that could be tied to AQ and Osama, the Taliban government would be held responsible and be the object of direct sanctioning action, including possible military action.
Note that once the Bushies had the confirmation that it was the usual suspects, which had to be early in their administration, they did nothing - nothing strategic, nothing tactical. That was the distinction Condi made for Sen. Kerrey when he also asked about the Cole. Essentially, the Clinton administration had determined that they too needed to frame a strategic response to the Cole, for which they needed to pin down responsibility to the Afghanistan based Taliban, but they ran out of time. The Bush administration at the highest levels—Cheney, Wolfie, Rummy, and Condi—decided a response to the Cole profited them nothing, and they didn't need to worry about getting criticism because Clinton could always be blamed.
Note the assumption that whatever was good for the Bush administration was what was good for America. Note also, that their lack of response did not keep them and their surrogates, and with Condi's testimony today those at the heart of this administration have to be included here, from blaming the Cole on Clinton, and basking in the ignominy that accrued to their predeccesors' so-called lack of response, though their lack of response was based on better intelligence than the Clinton administration had, but for exactly the same reasons. Audacious arrogance!
"You cannot depend on the chance that something will fall out of an agency, a meeting, or whatever the hell those stupid Clinton people claim they were doing when they were at THEIR so-called battlestations," or words to that effect.
This at the end, in response to Thompson. Yes, but what you can depend on is that nothing, no information, no dots to be connected, will fall from nothing, from no meetings, from a total lack of attention.
Condi revels in heaping scorn on "process," that favorite of the do-nothing Clintons; that process is substance and substance is process is too post-modern for Condi; maybe why she doesn't see that saying what your policy is, talking about grand strategic visions, "framing" arguments are not the same, though not unrelated to, TAKING ACTION! The Clinton battlestations had worked to thwart any AQ attacks on American soil for the eight years following the first Trade Center bombing; maybe until they had their own doubtless superior battlestations up and running, it wouldn't have been a bad idea to continue some of what had worked for the previous administration.
Note also how meaningless were those daily briefings of the President by CIA chief Tenant. And not because of any fault of the President necessarily. The Clinton administration's daily meetings at the next level down made more sense.
The emphasis on the August 6 briefing of the President by Condi in Crawford is amusing - as if anyone really expects this President to connect any dots on his own. If Condi et al didn't connect the dots, they weren't going to be connected.
Initial response to this morning: Condi seemed defensive, had clearly come with talking points she looked forward to using to gain control of the hearing. She looked combative, contemptuous; where was all that charm - or do they just mean her smile, which I'll give her, is an exceedingly nice one. And note that she gave them exactly three hours and not a minute more. The rightwing will revel in her contempt for this process and the Commissioners tasked with carrying it out. I don't think most other Americans will. I don't think she beat back Clarke, and I don't think this is over.
One indication - MSNBC has the four widows on right now, and they are ripping all kinds of new orifices in Condi's testimony. Mindy Kleinberg has just asked the question that even if no dots could be connected before 9/11, what about that morning, what about the President finally hearing that two different airplanes had crashed into the WTC, wasn't that the time that any decently prepared administration would have finally had to connect the dots, in which case, why did President Bush read a story to a class of children?
More later: let us know what you thought.
