Thursday, July 17, 2003
RICE: BRILLIANT LIAR OR JUST PLAIN STUPID?
The Nation Reports, You Decide
I can’t help wondering whether White House National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice is a brilliant liar or just plain stupid.
Here’s Robert Scheer writing in The Nation (“A Firm Basis for Impeachment,” posted July 15):
On national security, the buck doesn’t stop with [CIA Director George] Tenet, the current fall guy. The buck stops with Bush and his national security advisor, who is charged with funneling intelligence data to the President. That included cluing in the President that the CIA’s concerns were backed by the State Department’s conclusion that “the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are highly dubious.”
For her part, Rice has tried to fend off controversy by claiming ignorance. On Meet the Press in June, Rice claimed, “We did not know at the time -- no one knew at the time, in our circles -- maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery.”
On Friday, Rice admitted that she had known the State Department intelligence unit “was the one that within the overall intelligence estimate had objected to that sentence” and that Secretary of State Colin Powell had refused to use the Niger document in his presentation to the UN because of what she described as long-standing concerns about its credibility.
Sounds to me like someone is lying. And the more I think about it, the more I think she’s doing so clumsily and not so brilliantly after all.
[Post-publication addendum: For more on Yellowcake-Gate, or, alternatively, Niger-Gate, see Arianna Huffington (“Condoleezza Rice has been the worst offender. Now that we know that Tenet personally warned Rice’s deputy, Steve Hadley, not to use the yellowcake claim back in October, and the role NSC staffers played in manipulating the State of the Union, Rice’s widely publicized claim, made little over a month ago, that at the time of the State of the Union, ‘maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery’ has been revealed for what it is: A bald-face lie.”) and Joe Conason at Salon.com.]
[Post-publication addendum: And at Media Whores Online today the headline says it all: “So...Who Is She?”]
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James Martin (Jim) Capozzola launched The Rittenhouse Review in April 2002, TRR: The Lighter Side of Rittenhouse, HorowitzWatch, and Smarter Andrew Sullivan in July 2002, and Bulldogs for Kerry-Edwards in October 2004. He is also a contributing member of President Boxer.
He received the 2002 Koufax Award for Best Post> for "Al Gore and the Alpha Girls" (published November 25, 2002). Capozzola's record in the Koufax Awards includes two additional nominations for 2002 (Best Blog and Best Writing), three nominations for 2003 (Best Blog, Best Series, and Best Writing), and two finalist nominations in 2004 (Best Blog and Best Writing).
Capozzola’s experience beyond the blogosphere includes a lengthy career in financial journalism, securities analysis, and investment research, and in freelance writing, editing, ghost-writing, and writing instruction.
He earned his bachelor's degree in political science from the University at Albany and a master's in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia.
Capozzola lives in Philadelphia with his bulldog, Mildred.
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