The Perky One Gets Her Journalistic Head
Handed to Her by Condi Rice

One of the people I most respect in public life is Condoleezza Rice. One of the people I least respect, in terms of how she does her job as a professional (leaving the personal aside) is Katie Couric. In a recent interview, evidently Couric thought she was interviewing a Sarah Palin-type intellect ("So, what newspapers do you read?") when she interviewed Condi Rice (Dec. 3). Heh. Here is Rice, eating Couric's lunch when Couric "asks" (in one of those questions-that-isn't-a-question) about how intelligence was incorrectly analyzed and cherry-picked to build an argument for war. Rice stops Couric cold, and then proceeds in a verbal smackdown of The Perky One. Perky never had a chance, but what stumps me is that she didn't seem to see it coming. I would have given her a little more credit than that, although why I'm not sure. Couric, you are so out of your league here, I was (almost) embarrassed for you. But you've had this coming for a long time.

A partial transcript follows, but the visual is interesting.




KATIE COURIC: On Iraq, books have been written, as you know, many, many books; documentaries have been made about how intelligence was incorrectly analyzed and cherry-picked to build an argument for war, and memos from that time do suggest that officials knew there was a small chance of actually finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, wait a second, what?

COURIC: (Chuckles.) There are -- there are some things that seem to suggest that in the buildup to the actual war that there was some doubt about that, wouldn't you say --

RICE: No. (Laughter.)

COURIC: Well --

RICE: Actually, I don't agree with that premise at all.

COURIC: You don't?

RICE: No.

COURIC: Even with -- when Tony Blair met with the president in Washington --

RICE: Well, you always -- are you 100 percent sure when you're dealing with an opaque, secretive country in which there have been no inspections for years? No, you're not 100 percent sure. But the preponderance of intelligence analysis -- the preponderance of intelligence analysis from around the world was that he had had weapons of mass destruction. We knew he had used weapons of mass destruction. That was not a theoretical proposition.

COURIC: Right. That's correct.

RICE: He'd used them --

COURIC: Against the Kurds.

RICE: Against the Kurds, against the Shia and against the Iranians. So he'd used them several times. And the preponderance of intelligence was that he was reconstituting or had actually, in the intelligence estimate, reconstituted his biological and chemical capabilities.

There was some debate about how far he had gotten on the nuclear front, some saying that with foreign help it could be a year; others saying it would be several years.

So no, it's simply not the case that there was, if you're in a position of decision-making, evidence to say that it was likely that he did not have weapons of mass destruction.

Now, what we found is that he was indeed breaking out of the constraints that had been put there -- we all know the scandal of oil-for-food -- that he was not as far along in that reconstitution as the intelligence had suggested. But the idea that somehow Saddam Hussein was not pursuing or was never going to pursue weapons of mass destruction, I think, is as misplaced as an argument that he had fully reconstituted.

RICE: Well, that's a pretty good rationale. (Laughter.) But let me -- let me go back to the premise, the question, in the absence of weapons of mass destruction, what was the -- it's true that you can only -- that what you know today can affect what you know and do tomorrow, but what you know today cannot affect what you did yesterday.

So the premise that somehow, because weapons of mass destruction were not found in stockpiles, the rationale for the war was flawed leaves out the fact that at the time that we decided to go to war, we thought there were weapons of mass destruction. So let's stipulate that.

Now, we didn't worry about weapons of mass destruction particularly in the hands of Russians. The Russians had the hundred thousand -- a hundred times the weapons capability of Saddam Hussein. The problem was that Saddam Hussein had taken the world to war in really destructive wars twice, Iran and the Gulf War in '91; dragged us into conflict again in '98, as President Clinton had responded to the problem there; violated repeatedly Security Council resolutions. The efforts that we were making to keep him in his box, whether it was oil-for-food or the -- or trying to keep his air forces on the ground through flying no-fly zones -- he was shooting at our aircraft every day, he still refused to acknowledge that Kuwait was an independent country, and so on and so on.

This was the most dangerous tyrant in the middle of the Middle East, and he had repeatedly flaunted (sic) the efforts of the international community to control him after '91. And so I think there is an argument that in those circumstances, getting Saddam -- getting rid of Saddam Hussein was a very good thing.

COURIC: So absent of the presence -- or if you had known at the time that Iraq wasn't as far along with its weapons program as it ultimately turned out to be, would all of those other things you mentioned provide rationale for the war?

RICE: Katie, I'm going to repeat: What you know today can affect what you do tomorrow, but not

COURIC: No, but just put yourself back there --

RICE: I did -- I can't -- I can't --

COURIC: I mean, you're saying that that seemed like a good rationale. Do you think it is?

RICE: I can't speculate on what I would have thought if I had known. I think it's not a fruitful exercise. We knew what we knew, and we made the decisions based on that intelligence and that knowledge.

Now I still believe that even in the absence of finding weapons of mass destruction, the world and the Middle East are much better places without Saddam Hussein. And you always can know what happened as a result of what you did. What you can't know is what would have happened had you not done it.

The Iraq that we're talking about today, our debate about Iraq today -- our concerns about Iraq today are, of course, about continuing violence. But the conversation is whether Shias, Sunnis, Kurds can within their new democratic institutions form the first multi-confessional democracy in the Arab world. That's a really interesting discussion, and it's different than a discussion that we might have been having about whether or not the nuclear competition between Ahmadinejad in Iran and Saddam Hussein in Iraq is a greater danger than having taken Saddam Hussein out.

COURIC: Do you --

RICE: So I actually think that might have been where we were.

COURIC: Do you think that democracy will hold in Iraq?

RICE: I do. The Iraqis are a tough people, and they're not easy. But I do think that they've got a chance in these new institutions to find a way to resolve their differences without somebody having to oppress somebody else, which has been the whole history of Iraq and in fact the whole history of the Middle East.

It will take some time. The first couple of outcomes may not, in fact, be very pretty to watch. But history has a long arc, and I think they've got a pretty good chance.

"We don't want to make HER mad"

Well, it's official. We certainly know now, if we didn't before, who wears the pants in Obama's family. This is quite simply the most unbelievable thing I've ever seen a sitting U.S. president do.

Not only did Obama hand over his podium to his pal Bill Clinton, but then after standing around looking bored to be there, he suddenly looked at his watch and said, "I've been keeping the First Lady waiting for about a half an hour. So I'm going to take off. You're in good hands. Gibbs will call last question." And Clinton's response? "Please go. . . .we don't want to make HER mad."

So Bill Clinton, evidently playing "President for a Day," stayed around for the next 30 minutes of the press conference on the Tax Bill, answering any and all questions. And no, Gibbsy-boy did NOT "call the last question"--Clinton did that.

So where did Obama have to run off to in such a hurry that he couldn't finish a press conference on the Tax Bill? Why, to his daughter's school party, of course. Could the "First Lady" have gone ahead without him and apologized that he was unavoidably delayed? Evidently NOT. This man has priorities, and they sure as hell don't include running the country. What they do include is keeping wifey happy. Good luck with that one, Champ.

h/t to my favorite blog, Michelle Obama's Mirror's Blog for the picture.

The guys at HotAir ask the obvious question: "How important is this deal to Obama? Less than a Christmas party and dealing with his spouse's irritation." The incredible shrinking president. I also thought Ace of Spades said it well: "equal parts funny, pathetic, and quite frankly a little scary."

Update. From the New York Post and John Podhoretz. "What happened here has, to my knowledge, never happened. When the president finishes speaking, whenever the  president finishes speaking, the event ends. Period.

"Not any longer.

"Obama can change the rules of etiquette governing his White House if he wants. The problem for him is that those rules of etiquette exist for a reason. They are intended to enforce the standing of the presidency itself. By breaching them, Obama did harm to his own standing, and at a time when he can ill afford to lose any more of his authority."

I'm taking a little break from the blog for a bit so that I can get some other writing work done. But I'll be back! These fools in the Obama administration may have been slapped down by the November election, but none of us are so naive as to believe that they're done with their dirty tricks. We'll be watching!

Bobby Jindal Mocks Obama's Security Strategy



h/t GatewayPundit

4 Million Hits . . . and Counting

Food court flash mob recording of Hallelujah Chorus

Julian Assange and Wikileaks

Of course yesterday's news was dominated by this assclown Assange.

Here's an excellent post from my friends at Missourah.com: "Julian Assange 2, USA 0."

Then there's this today from HotAir: "Suddenly Obama Administration Looking into Criminal Charges for Wikileaks." Seriously, what's their damned hurry?

Then there's this from American Thinker: "Cablegate: Obama's Katrina Times Ten."

Here's something from NewsBusters: "Krauthammer Urges Prosecution of WikiLeaks’ Journalistic Collaborators."

Obama Economic Kabuki Theater

Jim Heft at Gateway Pundit has this today about Obama "saving" the economy money by freezing the salaries of government workers (salaries that are right now at an all-time high). So instead of a reduction in force of government workers, Odimbulb is going to enact a two-year pay freeze on salaries of people who already make twice as much as people doing similar jobs in the private sector. Sweet.

Rush Limbaugh today called the scheme "bogus." I guess that's because he can't say "bullshit" on the air.

MooChelle Reminds Us,
"Desert Is Not a Right; We Don't Want to Hear the Whining"



h/t to Granny Jan, commentor extraordinaire at Michelle Obama's Mirror's Blog

h/t to one of my favorite posters here

"Don't Touch My Junk"

There's a meltdown happening with airport TSA security. Here's a YouTube video, found on Drudge, of the massive lines at O'Hare. Wait until Wednesday.



One passenger chose to strip rather than undergo a TSA "patdown." He was arrested.

Gloria Allred says she enjoyed having her private parts touched; Hillary Clinton, not so much.

Here's Bobby Jindal, asking a simple question: "Why is it that the Obama administration is more preoccupied with protecting the rights of terrorists, while subjecting law-abiding citizens to these intrusive body searches?" Why, indeed?

The TSA horror stories that are out there are legion. Here's one: "Please Remove Your Prosthetic Breast."

Charles Krauthammer has written one of the best pieces out there, as usual, about this issue: "Don't touch my junk," Washington Post.

Here's a YouTube video, "Heightened Airport Security"--h/t to one of my favorite followers.

Epic Failure at the Justice Department

"It's time for Eric Holder to go." Yesterday Ahmed Ghailani was acquitted in civilian court in the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania on all but one of 281 counts: his conviction was on conspiracy to destroy U.S. buildings; he was acquitted of killing 224 people, including 12 Americans.

And what did the DOJ have to say about it? "We respect the jury's verdict and are pleased that Ahmed Ghailani now faces a minimum of 20 years in prison. . . ." Really? The DOJ is pleased? Even though this is a man who confessed to the murder of over 200 people--they're pleased. Well, I'll be go to hell, as a man I know used to say. Ed Morrisey has the story over at HotAir this morning.

Epic Failure in Asia

This is what happens when you go around the world trashing your own country for two years--people decide to agree with your assessment, and they don't respect you. Nice going, Champ.

The WSJ is calling Obama's performance at the G-20 meeting in Seoul an "embarrassment": "Has there ever been a major economic summit where a U.S. President and his Treasury Secretary were as thoroughly rebuffed as they were at this week's G-20 meeting in Seoul? We can't think of one. President Obama failed to achieve any of his main goals while getting pounded (or, in O's word--"shellacked") by other world leaders for failing U.S. policies and lagging growth."

Here's the headline from HotAir: "Left, Right agree: Obama's G-20 performance worst ever": "In 2008, we warned about the dangers of putting a man in the White House with no executive, military, diplomatic, or private-sector experience. It should shock no one to find that American leadership has utterly vanished on the international stage when we elect someone incapable of providing that leadership."

As HotAir points out, even the San Francisco Chronicle isn't happy with The Won: "Obama can't get G-20 nations to follow his lead": "Sheallacked at home, shellacked abroad. President Obama's Asia trip is extending a losing streak with the latest setback--a refusal by other major financial powers to follow his lead to revive the global economy." What a smart, smart thing on our part to elect someone to the Executive Office who has never led anything. What intellectually honest person can possibly be surprised by any of this?

This one is from the Heritage Foundation: "Obama Hits the Trifecta of Failure in Seoul": "Obama's decision to allow the talks to collapse--and make no mistake, the decision was made at the presidential level--was a colossal blunder. It reflects serious shortcomings in his strategic thinking since it will have dramatic repercussions for U.S. foreign policy."

One wag is calling Obama "America's first half-term president." It would be funny if it weren't such a disaster.

And then there's Michelle Obama's Mirror's Blog, who, thank God, is always good for a laugh: "Honey, I Shrunk the Presidency!" Thank you, MOMB, for keeping the laughs going in this most dreadful of times.

From a MOMB commenter: "Is BOzo playing some sort of Japanese game in that first picture--say, 'Capture the black tile square?'"

Obama's Failure: Vanity?

Jonathan V. Last at The Weekly Standard has written a must-read article: "American Narcissus: The vanity of Barack Obama." Why has Barack Obama failed so spectacularly? Is he too dogmatically liberal or too pragmatic? Is he a socialist, or an anticolonialist, or a philosopher-president? Or is it possible that Obama’s failures stem from something simpler: vanity. Politicians as a class are particularly susceptible to mirror-gazing. But Obama’s vanity is overwhelming. It defines him, his politics, and his presidency.

The article is priceless.

"Are we having fun yet?" Here's a photo I found today posted on my favorite blog: Michelle Obama's Mirror's Blog. Holy Cow, does Zero look like a little bag of crap here, or what? Jeeze, this full-time job thing is hard.

Report on the overseas trip for Big Zero from our friends at MOMB:

10 days, 4 countries, zero trade agreements, zero agreement on trade imbalance, zero commitment from China to re-value the yuan, zero support from the other G-20 leaders, zero nuclear agreements. . . .BIG ZERO! Way to go, Champ. Seems that the world doesn't love you so much anymore.

If there's anyone out there who is positive this clown is going to run for re-election in 2012, I would recommend that they take a close look at that picture. Good Lord, we know that people age faster in the Office of the President, but this guy is looking like he's not going to make it to tomorrow.

The O's Are a Pure Mess

What is wrong with this woman? Michelle Obama has 27 minions to cover her every move: makeup artists, dressers, pressers--you name it. And she goes out in public looking like this? Good Lord. What First Lady ever looked like such a mess--ever? Thanks for doing such a great job of representing your country overseas, Michelle.

Update. A great blog about FLOTUS "fashion" from  a self-proclaimed "fashionista who is sick of the sycophantic suck-up media and mindless MO-bots healping false praise on our flabulous FLOTUS for her fashion faux pas"--Worst.Dressed.FLOTUS. . .EVER.

There's an article at American Thinker by Geoffrey P. Hunt: "A Broken President." It's seriously worth the read. Hunt suggests that we are a nation without a president: when we consider the modern version of the president as the inspirational leader of a free people, as the advocate and defender of America's greatness around the globe, as the champion of the oppressed and dispossessed while exhorting the self-confidence of individual achievement, the presidency under Obama has shriveled up, been rendered virtually irrelevant.

And of course, where was the commander-in-chief today on Veterans' Day? He was AWOL, naturally.

God Bless Our Veterans on Veterans' Day

You think '10 was tough? Check out '12

That title comes from an article at THE HILL, no less.

In two years, Democrats will have 21 seats up for grabs, compared to only 10 for Republicans. Also, the two "independents" who caucus with the Democrats will be up for reelection (Lieberman and avowed Socialist, Bernie Sanders from Vermont). Of course, says the article, it depends on the mood of the public.

Mood? I'll give them MOOD, where here in Missouri a House seat was stolen by Russ Carnahan (Dem--do I even have to say it) from challenger Ed Martin. Here's the freakin' MOOD of the public: "We're Still Advancing," written by Bill Hennessy at the St. Louis Tea Party Coalition. Go here to read about Russ Carnahan's "Mathematically Impossible Midnight Surge of Votes." The election between Carnahan and Martin is being contested. Stay tuned.

Oh, and here's a special little "Valentine" from Jim Hoft at gatewaypundit for Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) who is up for reelection in 2012.

Postings re: The Election around the blogosphere

My favorite so far comes from Michelle Malkin: "Take Your Olive Branch and Shove It, Democrats": "Here is an ironclad certainty: It's too little too late for the antagonist-in-chief to paper over two years of relentless Democratic incivility and hate toward his domestic 'enemies.'"

Here's one from Michelle Obama's Mirror's Blog: Post Election Blues (and Reds)--"we'll just have to get used to the Republican shift from the Party of 'No' to the party of 'Stop it!'"

From The Foundry, the blog at The Heritage Foundation: "Morning Bell: Get to Work." "The American people have a collective wisdom, and they expressed it yesterday. They took a stand and decided on a new direction because continuing down the path we're currently on would mean the end of the American Dream."

An interesting article from the NYT's opinion pages: Ross Douthat, "Was It Worth It?" "Was the 111th Congress's flurry of legislative activity worth the backlash it helped to create? Were the health care bill and the stimulus worth handing John Boehner the gavel in the House of Representatives? Did it make sense to push and push and then keep on pushing, even after the polls and town halls and special-election outcomes made it clear the voters were going to push back?" This guy ends the article by telling Republicans that they "need to keep a lid on their euphoria." Maybe he ought to see to his own house before he tells someone else what they "ought" to be doing. Just sayin.'

Here's a very nice exegesis of yesterday's Obama Presser from Ed Morrissey at HotAir. As he points out, the press actually played a little hardball with their questions yesterday, and no one asked what Obama found the most enchanting about the midterm elections. Heh.

House Wins . . . and so does the American public

Buh-bye, Nancy. Republicans picked up 66 seats in the House last night, a historic win.

And don't forget the governorships--a pickup of 9 last night for Republicans vs. one for the Dims. Fox interactive map here.

I'll let Allen West speak
for everyone who won last night

Representative Allen West, newly minted congressman from Florida. "A nation goes to war against an ideology. We are against something that is a totalitarian, theocratic, political ideology, and it is called Islam." This guy has no confusion about who the enemy is.

"The president said, not too long ago, that this was about punishing his enemies. He also talked about how this will be about going into hand-to-hand combat. Well I've gotta tell you something. If you want to pick a fight with a U.S. Army paratrooper, bring it on."

Voter Tuesday Images

Ed Morrissey over at HotAir: "Welcome to Accountability Day, where the American electorate passes judgment on their governing class."

We remember in November. Today it's our turn, Nancy.

In my very, very, very Leftist town (in Missouri, no less), where my Gadsden flag is the only one flying for miles around, there is NO WAITING this morning at my polling place. In 2008, the line at 7:00 a.m. went all the way back to the end of the church parking lot where the mood was like a tailgating party. Today? Not so much. Heh.

If you vote today, thank a Service Person that the polls are open for business in the U.S. of A.

"American Hero"



h/t to Lynn II, a commenter at my favorite blog, Michelle Obama's Mirror's Blog.