Don't Believe the Hype:
Let's be clear - and the Rude Pundit writes this as she is speaking - house negro and National Security "Adviser" Condoleeza Rice is revealing nothing to the 9/11 Commission. Unless all of a sudden she fears the claws of Beelzebub tearing her from her chair and dragging her down to hell to be sodomized repeatedly with uranium-tipped pitchforks, she's gonna stick to a script that she helped write. But right now she's so Ally McBeal-skinny that she could hardly fit a soul in her body, so chances are slim that she's gonna crack. And, really, is there anything she can say that would all of a sudden make the Bush administration, lost in Iraq like characters in a Paul Bowles story, look competent and effective pre-9/11? Prior to that day, the American public knew that a bunch of bumblefucks just took office - the terrorist attacks just unleashed the evil and violence that lurks just underneath slapstick. (Imagine an episode of the Three Stooges where the blows hurt, bruise, and cut. What happened to the happy-go-lucky serial assaulters we knew and loved?)

And we already know that the Bush administration was dismissive of all things Clinton. Gary Hart, he of the commission that pretty much said "Al-Qaeda is going to attack us. Soon," fucking begged Condi to take the threat seriously. Sandy Berger, outgoing National Security Adviser, told the Bushkoviks that they were gonna have to deal with Al-Qaeda one way or another. (By the way, for a laugh, there's some link fuck-up on the MSNBC site, and when you click on Berger's name in the 9/11 box to see his testimony, you get a picture of camel jockeys. And, no, that's not a cute and ironic racist statement - the picture is of actual camel jockeys. Perhaps some veiled statement about Berger?)

What's really fascinating here is the absolute hysterical pitch of hype around Condi's testimony, as if she's walkin' down from the mount with a couple of tablets. As if she's Goering at Nuremberg. The broadcast networks, which didn't see fit to interrupt the soaps with any of the other witnesses, are playing Condi in full. Last night, all the news channels were hyping Condi - what might she say? What won't she say? What's Joan Rivers gonna say about her ensemble? It was beautiful, because it guaranteed some kind of audience for Condi when she maintains her polite stonewalling, her refusal to take any responsibility, and her slave-like support for Bush's failed policies.

If there's any doubt about that, here's a line from her opening statement: "Since [9/11], America has been at war and under President Bush's leadership, we will remain at war until the terrorist threat to our nation has ended." It's the Bush campaign slogan writ large: perpetual war. And, more disgustingly, it is using the time at the microphone to advance the campaign of her boss - a free commercial, if you will. Or perhaps a stark choice: Rice said under Bush we will remain at war. Is the converse true? That we won't remain at war under Kerry? Doesn't seem like much of a choice, does it? But she's busy clashing with the Democrats, but not giving any ground, and being pandered to by the Republicans, and the whole commission process has become a sorry, sorry sight.

But the testimony goes on and on. It'll never end. There's no real answers from this White House, only spin, only impressions, only context, not content. Condi says she didn't see the documents that said planes might be used to attack the U.S. Condi says there was nothing that could have stopped the attacks. Let's say this: the Bush Administration did fuck up in its purge of all things Clinton, all priorities of the prior presidency. And it fucked up when it tried to prevent the commission's creation. And it fucked up when it opposed the commission's extension. And it fucked up when it tried to prevent Condi's testimony. And it's fucking up when it says the President and Vice President will appear together. And when you fuck up that many times, you are either covering something up or you're incompetent. Either way, you shouldn't be re-elected. Either way, it casts a pall on anything the President says about 9/11, and he says it constantly, like a mantra, and maybe, just maybe, we can return to Chuck D, who we opened with, and start our own chant back to Bush and Condi and everyone else, "9-11 is a joke. 9-11 is a joke."