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04/09/2004: "If I ever grow up, I want to be just like Dr. Condoleezza Rice."

I’ve heard they call her the “Warrior Princess” in the Bush Administration; an endearing term that expresses the range of this woman’s extra-ordinary, plethora of talents. Armed with her intellect and cogent arguments, she stood her ground against the partisan attacks of Bob Kerrey and Richard Ben-Veniste launched against her and the Administration. Armed with her grace and charm, the princess refused to lower herself into the gutter with them. She would not be intimidated, she would not respond to the rudeness she had been shown, she would not be duped into providing a sound bite by giving an incomplete response to a question, and despite the hours of grilling her she refused to let them wear her down.

I have been so impressed during the last three years that she has been in the spotlight that I was disappointed that she isn’t on the ticket as the veep with the President this year. Don’t get me wrong; I like Dick Cheney, a lot. But in 2008, the ticket will be up against Hillary. If we are going to elect the first woman to the Presidency in 2008, I would like to see the battle square off between Hillary and Condi and an incumbent veep trumps a senator. It would be nice to be able to be proud of the first woman President. It would also be nice to not have to worry that the national treasures are going out the back door of the White House again. Meeooow.

There were some highlight moments in the reality TV show the media. From the transcript:

Highlight # 1

BEN-VENISTE. Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the Aug. 6 P.D.B. warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that P.D.B.
RICE. I believe the title was Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside the United States. Now, the P.D.B. -
BEN-VENISTE. Thank you.
RICE. No, Mr. Ben-Veniste -
BEN-VENISTE. I will get into the -
RICE. I would like to finish my point here.
BEN-VENISTE. I didn't know there was a point.
RICE. Given that - you asked me whether or not it warned of attacks.
BEN-VENISTE. I asked you what the title was.
RICE. You said did it not warn of attacks. It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.

Score 1 point in favor of Condi here. Mr. Ben-Veniste asks two questions and insists he only asked one. Apparently, he can’t keep track of his own questions but she can.

Extra, Extra Credit to Condi for cool, calm response to “I DIDN”T KNOW THERE WAS A POINT.”

Leslie’s answer: “Just because you can’t keep up, you condescending, little bastard, doesn’t mean I can’t. If need be I’m sure we can get the media to rewind the tape for a count of how many questions your deranged little mind has just fired off.

Highlight # 2
……
KERREY. Well, I think it's an unfortunate figure of speech. Because I think especially after the attack on the Cole on the 12th of October 2000 it would not have been swatting a fly. It would not have been - we did not need to wait to get a strategic plan. Dick Clarke had in his memo on the 25th of January overt military operations. He turned that memo around in 24 hours, Dr. Clarke.(as spoken) There were a lot of plans in place in the Clinton administration, military plans in the Clinton administration. In fact, just since we're in the mood to declassify stuff, he included in his Jan. 25 memo two appendixes. Appendix A, strategy for the elimination of the jihadis threat of Al Qaeda. Appendix B, political military plan for Al Qaeda. So I just, why didn't we respond to the Cole? Why didn't we swat that fly?
RICE. I believe that there is a question of whether or not you respond in a tactical sense or whether you respond in a strategic sense. Whether or not you decide that you're going to respond to every attack with minimal use of military force. And go after - on a kind of tit for tat basis. By the way, in that memo Dick Clarke talks about not doing this tit for tat, doing this on a time of our choosing. I'm aware, Mr. Kerrey, of a speech that you gave at that time that said that perhaps the best thing that we could do to respond to the Cole and to the memories was to do something about the threat of Saddam Hussein. That's a strategic view. And we took a strategic view. We didn't take a tactical view. I mean it was really, quite frankly, I was blown away when I read the speech. Because it's a brilliant speech. It talks about really an asymmetric approach.
KERREY. I presume you read it in the last few days.
RICE. Oh, no. I read it quite a bit before that. It's an asymmetric approach. Now you can decide that every time Al Qaeda does something -
KERREY. You're saying that you didn't have a military response against the Cole because of my speech?
RICE. I'm saying, I'm saying, no -
KERREY. That had I not given that speech you would have attacked them?
RICE. No, I'm just saying that I think it was a brilliant way to think about it. It was a way of thinking about it strategically not tactically. But if I may answer the question that you've asked me. The issue of whether to respond, how to respond to the Cole I think Don Rumsfeld has also talked about this, yes, the Cole had happened. We received I think on Jan. 25 the same assessment or roughly the same assessment of who was responsible for the Cole that Sandy Berger talked to you about. It was preliminary. It was not clear. But that was not the reason that we felt that we did not want to quote respond to the Cole. We knew that the options that had been employed by the Clinton administration had been standoff options. The president had - meaning missile strikes or perhaps bombers would have been possible, long-range bombers although getting in place the apparatus to use long-range bombers is even a matter of whether you have basing in the region. We knew that Osama bin Laden had been in something that was provided to me bragging that he was going to withstand any response and then he was going to emerge and come out stronger.
KERREY. You're figuring this out. You've got to give a very long answer.
RICE. We simply believed that the best approach was to put in place a plan that was going to eliminate this threat not respond to it tit for tat.
KERREY. Dr. Clarke, look, let me say I think you could have come in here if you said look we screwed up. We made a lot of mistakes. And you obviously don't want to use the `m' word in here. And I would say, fine. It's game, set and match. I understand that. But this strategic and tactical, it sounds like something for a seminar.
RICE. I just don't believe -
KERREY. It doesn't -
RICE. I do not believe to this day that it would have been a good thing to respond to the Cole given the kinds of options that we were going to have. And with all due respect to Dick Clarke, if you're speaking about the Delinda plan, my understanding is it was A, never adopted and that Dick Clarke himself has said that the military portion of this was not taken up by the Clinton administration so -
KERREY. Let me move into another area, Dr. -
RICE. - so we were not presented, I just want to be very clear on this because it's been a source of controversy. We were not presented with a plan.
KERREY. That's not true.
RICE. We were not -
KERREY. It is not -
RICE. We were not presented - we were presented with the -
KERREY. I've heard you say that, Dr. Clarke. If that 25 Jan. 2001 memo was declassified I don't believe -
RICE. That Jan. 25 memo -
KERREY. I don't -
RICE. That Jan. 25 memo has a series of actionable items having to do with Uzbekistan, Northern Alliance -
KERREY. Let me move to another area.
RICE. May I finish answering your question though because this is an important point.
KERREY. I know it's important. Everything that's going on here is important but I've got 10 minutes.
RICE. But since we have a point of disagreement I'd like to have a chance to address it.
KERREY. Actually, we have many points of disagreement, Dr. Clarke. We'll have a chance to do in closed session. You can't - please don't filibuster me. It's not fair. It is not fair. I have been polite. I have been courteous. It is not fair to me. I understand that we have a disagreement.
RICE. Commissioner, commissioner, I am here to answer questions. And you've asked me a question.
KERREY. No, it -
RICE. And I'd like to have an opportunity to answer it. The fact is that what we were presented on January the 25th was a set of ideas -
KERREY. O.K.
RICE. - and a paper, most of which was about what the Clinton administration had done and something called the Delinda plan, which had been considered in 1998 and never adopted. We decided to take a different track. We decided to put together a strategic approach to this that would get the regional powers - the problem wasn't that you didn't have a good counterterrorism person. The problem was you didn't have a approach against Al Qaeda because you didn't have an approach against Afghanistan. And you didn't have an approach against Afghanistan because you didn't have an approach against Pakistan. And until we could get that right you didn't have a policy.
KERREY. Thank you for answering my question.
RICE. You're welcome.
……..

KERREY. Dr. Clarke, Dr. Clarke -
RICE. Now, you've said.
KERREY. Dr. Clarke, and in the spirit of further declassification -
RICE. Sir, with all - I don't think I look like Dick Clarke.
KERREY. Dr. Rice, excuse me.
RICE. Thank you.

3 pointer scored in this little section. After taking some of his allotted time at the opening to bless the country with his personal views of what is currently happening in Iraq, he then accuses her of filibustering her answers and chewing up his time. Another point is awarded for gracefully not embarrassing the jackass because he couldn’t get her name right. And one more point for throwing his own speech back into his face.

Extra, Extra Credit for not ripping his throat out when he called her a liar with:
KERREY. That's not true.
and for pointing out the entire reason for her being there and not jumping on his response
RICE. Commissioner, commissioner, I am here to answer questions. And you've asked me a question.
KERREY. No, it –

Leslie’s response: “No it” what? You little partisan has been, I am not here to answer questions? I am just here for you to lob your sound bites at without response required? You’ve been polite to me. You called me a liar. You keep calling me Dick Clarke. Isn’t that Freudian? Liar and Dick Clarke. Word Association test going on in your pee brain? I’m sorry if you think I’m wasting your valuable time, I got the impression from the beginning that your sharing your personal opinions on current events that you didn’t value your time much that has been allotted to delve into the past. Cut to the chase here. You and the rest of the has beens up there, have a political agenda that is despicable considering the subject matter and not worth my time. But since I’m here, I thought I would play your little game just for my own amusement because quite frankly your daily talking points just don’t hold up to any scrutiny. And by the way, we didn’t respond to the Cole incident because it didn’t happen on our watch. Perhaps, besides confusing me with some, white guy, you also have us confused with the Clinton Administration?

Rest easier tonight, hardworking Americans. Dr. Condoleezza Rice is the National Security Advisor and I am not. Point, set, match in favor of Condi.