"Nothing would be better, from my point of view, than to be able to testify," Rice told CBS's "60 Minutes." "I would really like to do that. But there is an important principle involved here: It is a long-standing principle that sitting national security advisers do not testify before the Congress."This is just dishonest in so many ways that it's hard to list them all.
First, as Josh Marshall, who continues to take point on this, notes, the phrasing is carefully parsed. Sandy Berger testified twice before Congress in the 1990s - oh, but the first time he was Deputy National Security Advisor, so that doesn't count. The second time, while he was director of the National Security Council, it was during an investigation of a scandal - so that wasn't "policy," so that doesn't count, either. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski testified in 1980 - again in the context of an investigation, so again that doesn't count.
But beyond that, there's the fact that the Commission is not a Congressional body! Yes, it was created by an act of Congress, but that doesn't make it an arm of the legislative branch. Testifying before the Commission is not testifying before Congress.
Even beyond that, the argument is utter crap on its own terms: Rice has already testified before the Commission and has offered to meet with it again, so the whole argument is bogus on its face. (Although I expect the answer would be that since she wasn't under oath, it wasn't "testimony," which is in line with the Bushites preference for weasel wording. "We never said 'imminent,'" anyone?) What she doesn't want to do - and what Bush doesn't want her to do - is testify under oath. Or in public. Or worse, both. That is, under any conditions where she can be effectively challenged and held responsible for what she says.
They are just cowards. Lying cowards.
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