From Editor & Publisher

NEW YORK If you’ve ever had trouble getting an Op-Ed submission published – and who among print journalists has not? — this might make you feel a little better: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has had the same problem.

Writing a — what else? an Op-Ed — in the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday, former New York Times reporter Joel Brinkley (who now teaches journalism at Stanford) reveals Rice’s problem in discussing her wider loss of influence.

A few months ago, she decided to write an opinion piece about Lebanon. She enlisted John Chambers, chief executive officer of Cisco Systems as a co-author, and they wrote about public/private partnerships and how they might be of use in rebuilding Lebanon after last summer’s war. No one would publish it.

Think about that. Every one of the major newspapers approached refused to publish an essay by the secretary of state. Price Floyd, who was the State Department’s director of media affairs until recently, recalls that it was sent to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and perhaps other papers before the department finally tried a foreign publication, the Financial Times of London, which also turned it down.

As a last-ditch strategy, the State Department briefly considered translating the article into Arabic and trying a Lebanese paper. But finally they just gave up. “I kept hearing the same thing: ‘There’s no news in this.’ ” Floyd said. The piece, he said, was littered with glowing references to President Bush’s wise leadership. “It read like a campaign document.”

Floyd left the State Department on April 1, after 17 years. He said he was fed up with the relentless partisanship and the unwillingness to consider other points of view. His supervisor, a political appointee, kept “telling me to shut up,” he said. Nothing like that had occurred under Presidents Bill Clinton or George H.W. Bush. “They just wanted us to be Bush automatons.”

By Sue Pleming and Andrew Gray

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates travel to the Middle East next week seeking Arab support to stabilize Iraq but they may face an uphill battle from Saudi Arabia.

U.S. officials are increasingly frustrated with Sunni Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia that harbor doubts about Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government, seeing it as unable to pacify the country and too close politically to Shi’ite-dominated Iran.

A senior State Department official said on Friday Iraq’s Sunni Arab neighbors must send an “affirmative” message of support to the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and to Sunni moderates in Iraq.

“We want to see all of the neighbors, particularly such key partners as Saudi Arabia and the (United Arab) Emirates, play in Iraq the kind of supportive and constructive role that will be in their interests as well as ours in the region in confronting the negative forces,” said the official, who spoke on condition he was not named.

Rice and Gates will deliver this message when they meet ministers of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council as well as Jordan and Egypt in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Tuesday, followed by meetings in Saudi Arabia.

“The region itself can’t sit on the fence waiting. It needs to positively engage as well,” said the senior official.

The New York Times reported on Friday that the Saudis had offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq and U.S. officials were increasingly concerned about its close Arab ally’s “counterproductive” role in Iraq.

read more HERE

By HELENE COOPER and DAVID E. SANGER
from The New York Times

WASHINGTON, June 15 - A year after President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced a new strategy toward Iran, a behind-the’scenes debate has broken out within the administration over whether the approach has any hope of reining in Iran’s nuclear program, according to senior administration officials.

The debate has pitted Ms. Rice and her deputies, who appear to be winning so far, against the few remaining hawks inside the administration, especially those in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office who, according to some people familiar with the discussions, are pressing for greater consideration of military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.

In the year since Ms. Rice announced the new strategy for the United States to join forces with Europe, Russia and China to press Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities, Iran has installed more than a thousand centrifuges to enrich uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency predicts that 8,000 or so could be spinning by the end of the year, if Iran surmounts its technical problems.

Those hard numbers are at the core of the debate within the administration over whether Mr. Bush should warn Iran’s leaders that he will not allow them to get beyond some yet-undefined milestones, leaving the implication that a military strike on the country’s facilities is still an option.

Even beyond its nuclear program, Iran is emerging as an increasing source of trouble for the Bush administration by inflaming the insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and in Gaza, where it has provided military and financial support to the militant Islamic group Hamas, which now controls the Gaza Strip.

Even so, friends and associates of Ms. Rice who have talked with her recently say she has increasingly moved toward the European position that the diplomatic path she has laid out is the only real option for Mr. Bush, even though it has so far failed to deter Iran from enriching uranium, and that a military strike would be disastrous.

read more at THE NEW YORK TIMES

And people have the nerve to say she’s lousy at her job.

Rice arrives in Spain, criticizes hosts over Cuba

MADRID - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Spain for what is meant to be a fence-mending trip on Friday but her first words were of reproach for its policy of engaging Cuba.

“Democratic states have an obligation to act democratically, meaning to support opposition in Cuba, not to give the regime the idea that they can transition from one dictatorship to another,” she told reporters on her plane shortly before touching down in the Spanish capital.
[...]

“I expect that the issue of Cuba will continue to be an issue between us, and it will continue to be one in which we will make our views known. I am sure the Spanish want to make their views known,” said Rice said, who was to meet Zapatero.

The United States has a policy of isolating Cuba and its ailing President Fidel Castro while Spain favors engagement.

Cuba and its former colonial power Spain held talks on human rights in Havana this week but, in a joint statement, did not say whether they discussed 59 dissidents in Cuban prisons.

Full article at MSNBC.com

Is there no nation this administration can’t/won’t piss off?

Full article at RawStory

“George Tenet is just the latest to join this blame game,” writes Frank Rich in his Sunday New York Times op-ed piece.

Three years ago it was General Tommy Franks laying the blame for the bungled Iraq war at the feet of Douglas Feith. Last year it was “neocon cheerleader” Kenneth Adelman pointing the finger at Tenet, Franks and L. Paul Bremer. Richard Perle called out Bush, Ahmad Chalabi placed the burden on Paul Wolfowitz.

“And of course nearly everyone blames Rumsfeld,” says Rich. “This would be a Three Stooges routine were there only three stooges.”

But the highest level Bush confidant who was around when the war was being conceived, and is still on the payroll, is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Last week Rice made the rounds on the morning talk show circuit, just days after rebuffing a subpoena from House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about the intelligence that was used to make a case for war with Iraq.

from Think Progress

Thursday night, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice again belittled Speaker Nancy Pelosi for traveling to Syria, hours after she held high-level talks with Syria’s foreign minister.

In an interview with CNN, Rice attacked Pelosi’s trip as a photo-op. She claimed Pelosi had only gone to Damascus “to have those pictures” and to suggest a relationship “that doesn-t exist with Syria.”

It’s a familiar talking-point: in the midst of this trumped up “controversy,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Pelosi was only traveling to “have a photo opportunity and have tea” with Syria’s prime minister, and President Bush said “photo opportunities and/or meetings” send “mixed messages.”

Pelosi’s substantive talks with the Syrians should not be derided and reduced to a photo-op, as she “reinforced the administration’s policies” and drove the same message as Rice did with respect to Iraq - “insisting that [the Syrian] government block militants seeking to cross into Iraq and join insurgents there.” Unfortunately, Rice still finds a way to target Pelosi while failing to even mention the five Republicans who have visited Syria in the past year.

By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer

Iraq emerged from a vital conference Friday with a promise from Arab countries to stop foreign militants from joining Iraq’s insurgency. But Baghdad didn’t get the debt relief it wanted, and its Sunni Arab neighbors demand Iraq’s Shiite-led government enact tough political reforms.

The two-day gathering of top diplomats from the region, the United States and around the world was the warmest yet between Iraq and Arab countries, but suspicions remained between the two sides.

“We will see the extent of the seriousness and commitment among these nations to what they signed today,” Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told reporters. “If these promises are not kept, we will watch it, and there will be no reason to hold any further conferences.”

Baghdad also did not achieve another goal - progress in easing tensions between the United States and Iran, whose disputes Iraqis say are fueling the chaos in their country. Despite urging from the Iraqis, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki did not hold talks - only exchanged wary pleasantries over lunch.

But Rice met with another regional rival of the U.S., Syria. She held a half hour of talks Thursday with its foreign minister, urging Damascus to do more to control its notoriously porous border with Iraq.

read more at YAHOO!

OSLO, Norway - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she has already answered the questions she has been subpoenaed to answer before a congressional committee and suggested she is not inclined to comply with the order.

Rice said she would respond by mail to questions from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the Bush administration’s prewar claims about Saddam Hussein seeking weapons of mass destruction, but signaled she would not appear in person.

“I am more than happy to answer them again in a letter,” she told reporters in Oslo, where she is attending a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.

The comments were her first reaction to a subpoena issued on Wednesday by the committee chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Since the November election, I’ve learned how to spell every form of the word subpoena. Ha! Now I wish something would come of them……. like say…. some Republicans behind bars…..or impeached…… or banished to Baghdad for the rest of their lives!

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Wednesday ramped up its investigation of the Bush administration, subpoenaing the testimony of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan as well as e-mails White House officials composed on RNC accounts.
The committee voted 21-10 to subpoena Rice as part of its investigation of the administration’s assertion that Iraq sought to purchase uranium in Africa - a claim that was used to justify going to war in Iraq.

In his opening statement, Chairman Harry Waxman (D-Calif.) said he prefers to issue subpoenas as a “last resort,” adding that he felt he had “hit a brick wall” with Rice.

“For four years, I have been trying to get information from Condoleezza Rice on a variety of issues, including the reference to uranium and Niger in the president’s 2003 State of the Union speech,” Waxman said.

More at the Hill

House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) has
written yet another letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice requesting her
testimony regarding President Bush’s claims that Iraq attempted to procure uranium
from Niger. Mr. Waxman writes that his previous letters to the Secretary of State
produced “an insufficient response from the State Department’s Legislative Affairs
office.”

During today’s State Department press briefing, Sean McCormack, spokesman for the Department claimed the letter “answered in full” all of Waxman’s inquiries. He added that he was
“very curious” as to why Waxman believed the previous response to be insufficient:

Here’s a portion of the press briefing:

QUESTION: Apparently, in Congress, the House reiterated its request for Secretary
Rice to testify on April 18th, on…

MCCORMACK: Is this from Mr. Waxman’s committee?

QUESTION: Yes. Yes.

MCCORMACK: I don-t really see the need. I think the letter that we replied to
answered in full all of his inquiries.

QUESTION: No, he said, After receiving an insufficient response from the State
Department…

MCCORMACK: I don-t know what makes - it would be interesting for them to detail
in what regard it’s insufficient, in that we detailed some correspondence - and
through all the correspondence that they alleged was not responded to, and detailed for them exactly how it was responded to, including a letter that they said that they
sent that nobody could find any evidence it had been sent. So, clearly, we were answering our mail, looking at it, and responding to it. I-m not quite sure that they have done the same.

QUESTION: So she refuses to testify?

MCCORMACK: I haven-t asked her. I haven-t put the question to her.
But I think the question needs to be, when they talk about an insufficient.

Note to McCormack: Read the letter. Waxman lays out plainly why the State Department’s response has been “insufficient.” Specifically, he states that the State Department has not been forthcoming about Rice’s knowledge about the false Niger uranium claim that made its way into Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address:

From Mr. Waxman’s most recent letter:

In my March 12 letter, l requested information about what you knew about this assertion and how it ended up in the State of the Union address. I asked you to answer specific questions raised in a June 10, 2003, letter and a July 29,2003, letter, both of which I enclosed. These questions included: (1) whether you had any knowledge that would explain why President Bush cited forged evidence about Iraq’s efforts to procure uranium from Niger in the State of the Union address; (2) whether you knew before the State of the Union address of the doubts raised by the CIA and the State Department about the veracity of the Niger claim; (3) whether there was a factual basis for your reference in a January 23,2003, op-ed to “Iraq’s efforts to get uranium from abroad”; and (4) whether you took appropriate steps to investigate how the Niger claim ended up in the State of the Union address after it was revealed to be fraudulent.

Rather than address any of these questions, Mr. Bergner forwarded copies of two old State Department letters that have no bearing whatsoever on your knowledge of, your role in, or your statements about the Niger claim.

Rice’s days of blowing off Waxman’s letters are over. If the State Department can-t find time to read and adequately respond to his inquiries, Waxman said he will request her testimony on April 18.This is going to get interesting.

Condi Rice Henry Waxman State Department

Operation Imposing Law…….how sickening is that? Who comes up with these names? Let me guess…….Dickoilhead Cheney! 49 U.S. deaths this month, 2 UK, 1 Other and 909 Iraqi’s dead in 17 days……and Condi thinks it’s off to a good start. Uh huh….ok. If you say it….it must be so.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Saturday lauded early progress in a military operation against militants in Baghdad, but said Iraqis had to use this “breathing space” to push ahead with reconciliation.

Rice made an unannounced visit to Baghdad as U.S. and Iraqi troops make initial gains in an offensive seen as a final push to end sectarian bloodshed that threatens to tear Iraq apart.

“They are off to a good start,” said Rice, referring to Operation Imposing Law. “How the Iraqis use the breathing space that might provide is what is really important,” she told reporters.

While major car bombings and death squad killings in Baghdad have declined, a double car bombing on Saturday at a crowded market in the northern city of Kirkuk killed at least 10 people and wounded 60, police sources said.

The explosions took place in the Rahim Awa district, a predominantly Kurdish area of the ethnically mixed city.

Rice said Iraq’s leaders needed to speed up efforts to reconcile warring Shi’ite and Sunni groups, finalize an oil revenue sharing law and hold provincial elections.

Read more here

The Blammmmmmme Game…….. Condi Condi bo Bondi Banana Fanana Fo Fandi Fe Fi Fo Mondi……..Connnnnnndi. Condi’s turn…….
The woman IS useless…….but damn she has some nice shoes!!!

WASHINGTON: For six years, first as national security adviser and then as secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice worked under the cover of a very effective shield: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was during that time the administration’s lightning rod for criticism over its handling of Iraq.

But in recent weeks, with Rumsfeld gone, Rice has faced increased, and somewhat unfamiliar, criticism. At a Senate hearing on Jan. 11, she confronted a wall of opposition from Republicans as well as Democrats. During three days of hearings last week on Iraq, several of her predecessors were pointed in their disapproval of her job performance.

Former Secretary of State James Baker took issue with Rice’s refusal to engage Syria diplomatically. Back in his day, he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “we practiced diplomacy full time, and it paid off.”

Last week, Senators Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona, released three letters demanding that Rice make public the administration’s requirements for actions to be taken by the Iraqi government to earn continued U.S. support. Along with the letters, and Rice’s reply - which indicated that the Iraqis had already missed most of the benchmarks - the senators also released an irate statement.

“Secretary Rice finally provided a response” to the senators’ repeated requests, the statement said. “What Secretary Rice’s letter makes abundantly clear is that the administration does not intend to attach meaningful consequences for the Iraqis continuing to fail to meet their commitments.”

Read more at the International Herald Tribune

Jim Webb vs. Condi Rice

I hope everybody in the room had their boots on because the bullshit shooting out of her mouth was thick.

Most Americans are against the idea of a troop surge in Iraq. Actually, most want us out of Iraq altogether. Even the Iraqis say “there’s no need for further troops.” So why is this plan still a go? I found the following Wikipedia entry which may help us understand:

A mnemonic that can be used to remember the criteria for antisocial personality disorder is CORRUPT:

* C - cannot follow law
* O - obligations ignored
* R - remorselessness
* R - recklessness
* U - underhandedness
* P - planning deficit
* T - temper

All is not lost. Rumor has it that a viable opposition party had been voted in our last election. Albeit spineless and ball-less, these fighters for truth and justice plan to take on the Bush administration head to head. But please remember, this is only a rumor!

Rice says Iraq is worth the sacrifice of lives and money

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told The Associated Press on Thursday that Iraq is “worth the investment” in American lives and dollars.

The top U.S. diplomat said the United States can win in Iraq, although the war so far has been longer and more difficult than she had expected. She made the remarks as President Bush is under pressure from the public and members of Congress to find a fresh course in the long-running and costly war, which has cost the lives of at least 2,959 American troops and shown no signs of ending.
…

Bush would not ask for continued sacrifice and spending “if he didn’t believe, and in fact I believe as well, that we can in fact succeed,” Rice said.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told visiting Defense Secretary Robert Gates that he would let U.S. generals decide whether there is a need for a “surge” in U.S. troops deployed in Iraq, according to Iraqi officials with knowledge of the meeting.
…

But after seeing Gates, al-Maliki met with Shiite members of his alliance where divisions unfolded over whether more U.S. troops were needed, said Sami al-Askari, a Shiite member of parliament who is close to al-Maliki. Al-Askari, who attended the second meeting, said there was general feeling that “there’s no need for further troops.”

Gates said that during his meeting with al-Maliki he “emphasized … the steadfastness of American support” for Iraq. The message he heard back from al-Maliki, he said, is that the Iraqi government wants to take the lead in solving the country’s security problems — including in the most violent zones in and around Baghdad. There are 140,000 American troops in Iraq.

As politicians and generals talked, the killing continued.

The U.S. military said Thursday that a Marine and two soldiers died in central Iraq.

Source: Star-Telegram.com

                                                                                 

There’s lovely symbolism in the fact that ABC’s The Path to 9/11 casts Penny Johnson, best known as the Lady Macbeth of 24, Sherry Palmer, as Condoleezza Rice.  Rice is a very intelligent woman, and I share her appreciation for classical music, but she’s shown a brazen willingness to lie, repeatedly, to cover the collective asses of Bush and his other cronies.  She’s much smoother than a bully like Bolton, or the strange bulldog-éminence grise that is Dick Cheney, with his I-dare-you-to-call-me-a-liar poker approach.  But her culpability is just as deep and vile.     

One of the central lies in the “docudrama” features Johnson as Rice talking about how concerned President Bush is about the PDB, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside U.S.”

Wait, does that mean it’s no longer a historical document?

Does that mean that Bush didn’t tell the CIA agent who flew to Crawford to brief him personally (since Bush is not a big, y’know, reader), “All right, you’ve covered your ass now” …? 

It’s just like Bin Laden being boogeyman number one one day and not a threat another; none of the Bushies or their cheerleaders can keep their stories straight.  Even though it be by proxy, The Path to 9/11 is merely the latest but surely not the last attempt to re-write history and reality to their liking.