Joshua Micah Marshall has a dead-on analysis of Condi Rice’s response to the Clarke revelations.
Anyone who has ever been young — which, I suppose, includes everyone — remembers some shameless whippersnapper who had an older brother, or older sister, or some other sort of protector. And from under the wing or shadow of that protector they’d hurl all manner of taunts and insults and boasts at all the other little kids, confident that none of them could fight back or do anything about it.
Which brings us to Condoleeza Rice.
Here’s Richard Clarke, at the center of the storm, up there on Capitol Hill getting grilled over his story. And from the peanut gallery, there’s Condi Rice, heading over to the microphones at the White House every chance she gets to attack Clarke when no one can ask her any serious follow ups.
A couple hours after Clarke testified Rice headed over to the mikes and called his charges “scurrilous.”
“This story has so many twists and turns, he needs to get his story straight,” she said.
Rice truly has the best of all worlds. She hangs back at the White House shooting spit balls at Clarke and the rest of them. But she doesn’t have to back anything up because she doesn’t have to testify under oath or get questioned.
Condi does have a lot to say, lately. So why won’t she answer questions under oath?