Pelosi’s kindler, gentler leadership – Boxer style
Condoleeza Rice appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday to give them an update on the Iraqi “surge”. Among the many attacks she had to endure was this one from Barbara Boxer:
“You’re not going to pay a particular price,” she told Rice, because the secretary has no “immediate family” at risk.
Foxnews gave Boxer a pass:
No, Foxnews, personal attacks by Boxer are not “fair game”, and should have been noted as such. AP pretty much ran the same story. So, that’s sort of all you’re gonna get from them. However, IMO, what should have been noted in these same articles is that Boxer has a history of attacking Rice, from day one: “Let’s not rewrite history, it’s too soon for that,” Boxer said, and “This is a pattern here of what I see from you,” Boxer said. “It’s very troubling. … It’s hard for me to let go of this war because people are still dying.” Those were from Rice’s confirmation hearing. Now, the problem I have with both is Boxer makes the Iraqi war somehow Rice’s own personal decision in both cases and then makes personal attacks on Rice based on that assumption. That’s not the least bit fair to Rice. She didn’t make the decision. She didn’t even get to vote FOR the decision. It’s her job to do what she’s told to do by her boss, the President of the United States of America. So, for Boxer to do what she’s doing IMO, knowing what Boxer does, is immensely unethical and AP and Fox should be holding her feat to the fire.
But, they’re not. In the same stories, they make this observation as well:
Five presidential aspirants on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as other up-and-comers in the new Democratic majority, made sure their voices were heard. And these voices _ Republican ones included _ were full of frustration and mistrust about how President Bush has prosecuted and pitched the Iraq war.
Now, AP particularly wants the bolded part to stand out, they underline it ( or at least attempt to ). The chairman of this committee is Ike Skelton. Skelton is the one who picks who will be on the committee and, in this time of flux on the memberships particularly, who sits on the meetings. Does anyone think for one second he wouldn’t have cherry-picked Republicans for this meeting who weren’t already against the war? So, for a hand full of Republicans do be on a committee chaired by a Democrat siding with that Democrat’s opinions is a non-issue to me and AP should have pointed that out instead of simply noting Republicans also had “pent up frustration”.
And, lastly, the article does note five presidential candidates were on the committee for this meeting:
- Chris Dodd called it a “fool’s paradise”
- Joe Biden called it a “tragic mistake”
- John Kerry, “unbelievably off the mark”.
- Barack Obama nitpicked the details, probably the only one that didn’t sound bitter or silly.
- Chuck Hagel, who has openly opposed Bush for years.
Skelton and the committee were so concerned about Rice being made to feel comfortable during her presentation they went to all this trouble:
Everyone else got name plates with their name on it.
If it weren’t for bloggers, I doubt the question would have ever been asked publicly. Lord knows MSM doesn’t have the inclination to think and ask questions. If they did, they would have known this wasn’t a committee meeting, it was a Spanish Inquisition.
I do not disagree with the major point of your post – that Ms. Rice was treated rather shabbilly (sp?)in this committee hearing. Indications are that she personally was more in the Colin Powell camp and her personal views were steamrolled by the Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal in in this administration. That said, as Secretary of State, she is the face of this adminstration’s foreign policy and a proxy for it. That is the role she played for the Senators on this committee and that is the context of their comments.
As we sort through the born-again Iraq War critics of both parties who are facing re-election, or running for President, I think it is important to keep in the forefront what they were actually saying in run-up to the war pre 03/03, when it might have made a difference.
This is the thrust of my most recent YouTube effort “It’s the war, stupid.” and recent blog post of the same name.
Among Republicans, Chuck Hagel stands alone (as you point out) as a consistent critic of the administration’s handling of the war. Whatever you think of the “surge” it will guarantee that the Iraq War will be a bigger and an even more unpopular issue in 2008. I’m guessing that makes Hagel the only electable Republican in 2008.
If you want to really appreciate how far Hagel was ahead of the curve on Iraq, check out this video of his speech at Kansas State University in February of 2003 (Landon Lecture Series – warning it is long some 50 minutes).
Filmed a few weeks before we went into Iraq, Hagel warns about almost every single thing that has happened as a consequence over the last three years. Not hindsight, real foresight. It’s scary how on-target he was – He sounds like a friggin’ prophet now. Nobody was listening to him. Not in the administration. Not the American people. Just one voice lost in the winds of war fever. I include myself among the deaf, as I was as gung-ho as every other yahoo at the time.
Don’t have time to view the podcast or dig terribly deep into the subject, but, I was not implying Hagel was alone, I stated that Skelton cherry picked Republicans that would be antagonistic to Rice. Secondly, as you note, Rice is a proxy for foreign affairs, not the decision maker. If Boxer has an issue with the decisions Bush made, she should attack Bush. Attributing blame to Rice without substantiation is unfair to Rice. And, that is what Boxer has done for five years. I don’t even understand why she does it. It just makes her look petty and mean spirited, that’s all. Lastly, Rice holds her own very well against Boxer every single time, which the articles do note. So, it’s not doing Boxer any good to keep attacking Rice personally. The rest of my post was just illustrating that the “kinder, gentler” administration Pelosi has been selling for the last two years is pure BS.
As for the accuracy of Hagel, a lot of people knew this would be a bitch of a mess to get into. I don’t think too many people predicted the total collapse of Hussein the way it panned out. All that proved to people like me is that Hussein had a lot less of a true grip on his country as was perceived. What he did was squelch information coming out of Iraq. We walked into a landmine. However, the original goal was to get Hussein out. That has been done. What the US needs to be doing right now, and Bush is selling 100% wrong, is making sure someone just as radical and corrupt as Hussein doesn’t take over and cause exactly the same problems we had before. I could care less if they are a democracy or not, that’s their choice. What I do care is their government is not the next Taliban or Somalia. Until the Iraqis can get an established government that is civilized towards us, it’s people, and the world, we need to be there as much to protect ourselves as anything else. The people like Boxer, Pelosi, and Hagel, all tend to ignore what all was going on around the world at the time the decisions were made and pretend all was well. We sent a message by taking out Hussein and the Taliban. That message seems to have struck a lot of nerves all over the planet. However, we have not had one single African Embassy massacre, World Trade Center, USS Cole, or even airline hijacking since. Some people still cling to the idea it’s a coincedence or the people doing it are saving themselves for the next big one. The “next big one” was every year for a decade. Why have they suddenly switched to every five years and counting? Bottom line, it’s not coincedence. The war has moved away from the continental US and back to Iraq. That makes things a lot safer for me. And THAT is the bottom line responsibility of the President.
Condi for President?
Susan Estrich at Foxnews totally trashes Condi Rice. A couple of snippets:The woman who went to Capitol Hill on Thursday to defend the president’s proposed escalation of the Iraq war is not on anyone’s short list for anything in 2008.
[...] picked by Democrats.? Like she expected anyone on that committee to be sympathetic to Rice?? Did my picture of the nameless paper namecard not give Estrich a clue?? Because of that totally partisan and biased committee report, Estrich comes to the conclusion [...]