The proverbial

July 26, 2003 10:08 PM

Insiders suggest Condoleezza Rice could leaveAs White House officials try to control the latest fallout over President Bush's flawed suggestion in the State of the Union address that Iraq was buying nuclear bomb materials, there's growing talk by insiders that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice may take the blame and resign.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly (63 comments total)

This is potentially good news, considering the truly terrifying idea posted here recently that '04 could be a Bush/Rice ticket.
posted by interrobang at 10:30 PM on July 26, 2003

The front page of tomorrow's Washington Post. Very interesting.

via TPM
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:32 PM on July 26, 2003

very interesting....

i always thought she was one of the decent ones, one of the ones who kept dubya on the sane side.. or at least close to it.
posted by prescribed life at 10:51 PM on July 26, 2003

Yeah yeah, blah blah blah... I don't care if everybody from Cheney on down resigns, the responsibility for this still belongs to the President.
posted by mischief at 11:01 PM on July 26, 2003

Yeah yeah, blah blah blah... I don't care if everybody from Cheney on down resigns, the responsibility for this still belongs to the President.

Well, duh. The important thing is that we're witnessing history unfold. A hundred years from now, when planet earth has a completely different governing body, this specific scandal will be studied for "small" events like this.

Hopefully, unlike the Savings and Loans scandal (which we are all paying shitloads of money for still for which Neil Bush will never be prosecuted) this thing that's going on now will be easy enough to understand by the average American. It's pretty simple, really:

Bush was hired as CEO by the PNAC, who wanted to get into a war with Iraq really bad. After that, they want to conquer Syria and Iran. Has the Bush administration been pointing fingers at Syria and Iran lately? Does the Pope's shit smell holy?
posted by interrobang at 11:26 PM on July 26, 2003

Does the Pope shit in the woods?
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 11:30 PM on July 26, 2003

she'd better hurry if she wants to run in the Cali recall election. Gotta file by augist 9th
posted by delmoi at 11:37 PM on July 26, 2003

Everyone from Bush on down should resign. How many hands conspired to produced nicely edited and cooked intelligence? Why was Cheney spending so much time at the CIA? Does Rumsfeld really need his own personal spy ring? Why were the cavaets of the intelligence community ignored? Even a professional sycophant like Powell had to stand up and yell he couldn't read the bullshit Bush and co. were sending his way.

We've been over this ground so many times now, yet there's no independent commission. The GOP take care of their own I guess.

This is politics at its dirtiest. Meanwhile another American soldier dies. 7,000+ Iraqi civilians were killed by US forces. Its like this sick macarbre game. Everytime I load up yahoo most viewed news or google news there's another dead soldier in a war that's supposed to be over. Heck, the general that ran it retired (a little too politically convienant eh?)

I don't want some token resignation, I want a real investigation into what the hell Americans are doing in Iraq. They sure as heck aren't collecting WMD and rounding up Al'Queda members.

Bush and co. are on borrowed time and they know it. 2004 is coming up and tossing Rice overboard isn't going to save them. They may be able to fight off the independent commission and kill Saddam, but the obvious lies and corruption will still haunt them.
posted by skallas at 11:38 PM on July 26, 2003

Throw them all out!

It seems that the Times (FRRYYY) is saying that Tenet could be on the way out. But it always feels like these people are just taking the fall, as opposed to actually being the people who created the bogus info in the first place.

When are we going to see Cheney get hit by this mess? As recently noted in TPM , all roads lead to Cheney
posted by Birichini at 12:00 AM on July 27, 2003

you're all on crack.
posted by techgnollogic at 12:28 AM on July 27, 2003

Condi for Veep in '04, Prez in '08. She's got my vote.
posted by davidmsc at 12:38 AM on July 27, 2003

you're all on crack.

and the cost of that crack has risen 137% since the republican coup.
posted by quonsar at 12:57 AM on July 27, 2003

Everyone from Bush on down should resign.

Most resignations require at least a hint of morality.
posted by interrobang at 1:06 AM on July 27, 2003

Or, like in Nixon's case, totally fucking obvious guilt, I guess.
posted by interrobang at 1:17 AM on July 27, 2003

the resignations of haldeman and erlichmann and the dismissal of john dean didn't do nixon a lot of good. basically just increased public perception of an increasingly listing u.s.s. nixon. interrobang is right about watching history unfold. the foam insulation has already pierced the wing of this doomed administration. i look forward to watching it burn up in the atmosphere.
posted by quonsar at 1:22 AM on July 27, 2003

she's too much a fox.
posted by pemulis at 1:43 AM on July 27, 2003

I love watching Condi's future in politics circle the drain. This does not end with Condi, as the astute quonsar pointed out above the resignations in the Nixon admin didn't save his sorry ass, and Condi falling on the sword won't help Dubya. I've read that it was the CIA that helped bring Nixon down, and now they could bring Dubya down, they should have been nicer to the spooks, spooks have long memories, and lots of documented information.
posted by jbou at 1:50 AM on July 27, 2003

Heh.

Delmoi's comment about Condi leaving to become governor of California -- guys, that's not infeasible. She was incredibly popular in her position at Stanford, and would beat Davis like a redheaded stepchild. Plus she's perhaps the most respected member of the Bush crew -- even Powell's taken flack with the travails of State.

Whoa.

--Dan
posted by effugas at 3:59 AM on July 27, 2003

Hah! my thoughts have been exactly the same. I think she's gonna run for Cali state governor.
posted by shadow45 at 5:07 AM on July 27, 2003

and if she does resign, what exactly will change? Will the Kyoto agreement be ratified? Will dangerously foolish sabre-rattling cease? Will an attempt to impose christian right morality on a country that prides itself on no established church be stopped? will British men from my hometown see a fair and open trial rather than a closed kangaroo court?

will R.E.M. ever make a good record again?

I'm gazing into my crystal ball and venture to suggest that not much will be different.
posted by Pericles at 5:09 AM on July 27, 2003

And wouldn't it just be all neat to see them prepare her for a presidential bid in 08? against hillary? cause methinks we'll see Hillary's ratass there.
posted by shadow45 at 5:11 AM on July 27, 2003

Actually, Ms. Rice could spin the resignation pretty well if she wanted to. Stepping down as NSA to run in the Cali gubernatorial campaign before allegations really get going would be a pretty good way to save her ass politically. By the time anything really substantive hits the US mainstream press, she'll be safely out of the way.

That said, does anyone else ever get the feeling at times that Dick Cheney is the _real_ 44th president of the US?
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 6:31 AM on July 27, 2003

That said, does anyone else ever get the feeling at times that Dick Cheney is the _real_ 44th president of the US?

Yeah, and just what is the deal with the peanuts on airlines?
posted by machaus at 6:41 AM on July 27, 2003

What the hell is Tenet still doing at the head of the CIA? After 9/11 and this latest flap you'd think he would get the hint.
posted by clevershark at 6:56 AM on July 27, 2003

Condi for Veep in '04, Prez in '08. She's got my vote.

Y'know, davidmsc, that's a total troll comment. It has nothing to do with the article in question, and you just said it to stir the shit in here.
posted by jpoulos at 8:08 AM on July 27, 2003

Y'know, davidmsc, that's a total troll comment. It has nothing to do with the article in question, and you just said it to stir the shit in here.

How kind of you to assume that he must have enough capacity for critical thought to not actually mean that.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 8:19 AM on July 27, 2003

and the cost of that crack has risen 137% since the republican coup.

Yeah, becasue of a decrease in supply, can the White House just stop beating up on the CIA and let them do their job?
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 8:40 AM on July 27, 2003

In Rice's July 11 briefing, on Air Force One between South Africa and Uganda, she said the CIA and the White House had "some discussion" on the Africa uranium sentence in Bush's State of the Union address. "Some specifics about amount and place were taken out," she said. Asked about how the language was changed, she replied: "I'm going to be very clear, all right? The president's speech -- that sentence was changed, right? And with the change in that sentence, the speech was cleared. Now, again, if the agency had wanted that sentence out, it would have gone. And the agency did not say that they wanted that speech out -- that sentence out of the speech. They cleared the speech. Now, the State of the Union is a big speech, a lot of things happen. I'm really not blaming anybody for what happened."

Three days later, then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Rice told him she was not referring to the State of the Union address, as she had indicated, but to Bush's October speech. That explanation, however, had a flaw: The sentence was removed from the October speech, not cleared.

Is that the Reaper, there, in the distance?
posted by the fire you left me at 8:44 AM on July 27, 2003

That said, does anyone else ever get the feeling at times that Dick Cheney is the _real_ 44th president of the US?

Nope, I think the real power is probably Karl Rove.
posted by dejah420 at 8:49 AM on July 27, 2003

Nuts to you, jpoulos...that was my of saying that I don't believe Rice to be "guilty" of anything nefarious, nor do I believe that she has been delinquent or otherwise negligent in her job. Furthermore, I believe that she really would be an excellent VP or Prez, and that the accusations and bile being flung about by the anti-Bush crowd will be seen for what they are: baseless.

Don't call me a troll.
posted by davidmsc at 9:03 AM on July 27, 2003

i always thought she was one of the decent ones, one of the ones who kept dubya on the sane side.. or at least close to it.

I think she probably is one of the decent ones, although it's hard to tell with this administration. She is, however, working in a culture of deceit, one which thinks as hard about selling its war to the American public as it does about whether the war is justified in the first place. Consider how this administration treats its own members who try and act according to their conscience, e.g., Christine Todd Whitman.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 9:22 AM on July 27, 2003

Right on dejah420.

On a side note, does anyone here think that she ever has sex? I can't form an image of it. Just doesn't work. For that matter for anyone in this administration.

Just wondering.
posted by damnitkage at 9:45 AM on July 27, 2003

On a side note, does anyone here think that she ever has sex? I can't form an image of it. Just doesn't work. For that matter for anyone in this administration.

I thought it was the general consensus that the Bush admin has fucked us all.
posted by stonerose at 9:48 AM on July 27, 2003

I betcha there are some dominatrixes in DC that Rove has on speed-dial : >
posted by amberglow at 10:26 AM on July 27, 2003

Fried Rice.
posted by euphorb at 10:42 AM on July 27, 2003

On a side note, does anyone here think that she ever has sex?

A black woman in power? Don't you watch the movies??
posted by WolfDaddy at 10:44 AM on July 27, 2003

Black women in power in the movies are always played by Anna Deveare Smith, right?
posted by adamgreenfield at 10:56 AM on July 27, 2003

I think Pam Greer should play her in the movie. Rudy Ray, who played Dolomite could be Colin Powell.
posted by damnitkage at 11:30 AM on July 27, 2003

She was interviewed on British tv in the lead up to the turkey shoot in Iraq and I thought that she was one of the scariest, right-wing lunatics that I had heard for a long time. It's doubly scary that she holds a position in the Bush administration and isn't the most extreme.

While I'm thankful that we don't have extremists like her in power in the UK (not even Anne Widdecombe is that scary), it's worrying that people like her are running the most powerful country in the world.
posted by daveg at 11:46 AM on July 27, 2003

There's only one choice for who plays Powell in the movie.
posted by squirrel at 11:56 AM on July 27, 2003

Condi has to be played by S. Epatha Merkerson, of Law & Order. And squirrel, it's going to be Condi who gets the Shaft.... John Shaft.
posted by stonerose at 12:07 PM on July 27, 2003

I'm sorry to coorect you, stonerose, but Condi will be played by Cheryl Cooley.
posted by squirrel at 12:20 PM on July 27, 2003

In a related topic: U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on Sunday defended the invasion of Iraq as an example of how the United States had to be prepared to act on "murky intelligence'' in its war on terrorism.

Fuzzy math, meet murky intelligence. I'm sure you two have lots to talk about.

[and squirrel, I think you may just be right.]
posted by stonerose at 12:23 PM on July 27, 2003

Stonerose, that would be hilarious if it wasn't so horrifying. "Don't you see, we didn't know that they weren't terrorists, so we *had* to bomb them!" Turns the whole burden of proof cleverly, if pathologically, upside down.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 12:54 PM on July 27, 2003

I remember in the lead-up to the war a quote of something like We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud being attributed to her. From that moment on I knew I was looking at nothing but another lying warmonger.
posted by holycola at 2:04 PM on July 27, 2003

This is starting to sound more like a (bad) movie script with each passing day.
posted by mischief at 2:17 PM on July 27, 2003

This is starting to sound more like a (bad) movie script with each passing day.

Thus the Dolomite reference. The time is right people!
posted by damnitkage at 2:53 PM on July 27, 2003

Davidsmc,

I know trolls, they are my speciality, and you sir are a troll. Quit lying to yourself and get over that cognitive dissonance you cling to in order to be an unrepentant Defender of All Things Duhbya. It'll do you good.
posted by nofundy at 3:18 PM on July 27, 2003

It might not be cognitive dissonance. It might be: fear and aggression; dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity; uncertainty avoidance; the need for cognitive closure; and/or terror management.
posted by goethean at 3:34 PM on July 27, 2003

goethean... that deserves its own FPP. :-)
posted by stonerose at 3:51 PM on July 27, 2003

And squirrel, it's going to be Condi who gets the Shaft.... John Shaft.

<ironic>
"Warms my black heart to see you so concerned about us minority folks."
</ironic>
posted by John Shaft at 4:58 PM on July 27, 2003

She was incredibly popular in her position at Stanford

She was only popular with Gerhard Caspar, the SU president. Okay, that's not true, but there were a lot of people who thought she was a malicious bitch. She was very much the bad cop in that relationship, and she had a reputation for being arbitrary with tenure and job cuts.
posted by jengod at 4:58 PM on July 27, 2003

That said, does anyone else ever get the feeling at times that Dick Cheney is the _real_ 44th president of the US?

Nope, I think the real power is probably Karl Rove.

I think it's a combination of the two. Cheney has lots of the actual power-- the corporate connections, the final decisionmaking, et al.-- but Karl Rove is an absolute genius at what he does: Make a man who has never really accomplished anything on his own merit look like a leader, a man of integrity, an honest and straightforward individual who truly has this country's best interests at heart. Wow-- that's incredible; I'm not sure that, in the same position, I'd be able to make W. look competent.
posted by nath at 6:54 PM on July 27, 2003

goethean, I second that FPP.
posted by squirrel at 6:57 PM on July 27, 2003

nofundy, go to heck. You may know trolls, but I am no troll - never been, never will be. If you think my comment above was a troll, you need to get out more.
posted by davidmsc at 7:23 PM on July 27, 2003

+davidmsc. No way his "Condi for Veep" comment was a troll.

nofundy, you insult us real trolls. ;-P
posted by mischief at 7:49 PM on July 27, 2003

she really would be an excellent VP or Prez

this from a conversation i had with friend of mine who knows condi well:

question:
"she seems like she has brains - im wondering where she left them???"

response:
"She left them in grad school when she realized power comes with the old
white boys...

And she wanted to get herself some.

Power, that is."


is condi rice in anyway a role model for young african american women??? or young women in general?

i think her lies and role as an apologist for one of the most destructive presidents we have ever had, as well as being a board member on one of the worlds most destructive multi-national companies - answers the question.
posted by specialk420 at 8:14 PM on July 27, 2003

That said, does anyone else ever get the feeling at times that Dick Cheney is the _real_ 44th president of the US?

That depends on what the meaning of "is" is - since said election hasn't happened yet.

That said, machaus had the best response to the question.
posted by soyjoy at 10:20 PM on July 27, 2003

Loyalty pays off in Bush camp - Job security seems to depend on it regardless of the facts

In the rising controversy over how the Bush administration built its case for war in Iraq, one curious fact stands out. Some who gave President Bush unwelcome information that turned out to be accurate are gone. Those who did the opposite are still around.

Former economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni and former Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Shinseki voiced concerns about the expense, aftermath and forces that would be needed -- concerns now proving to be true. These men are no longer in the picture.

In light of this, could it simply be that she drank the kool aid of her own free will.
posted by y2karl at 1:15 AM on July 28, 2003

nofundy, you insult us real trolls. ;-P

Someone's forgotten the first rule of Troll Club...
posted by inpHilltr8r at 12:15 PM on July 28, 2003

DavidMSC:

How can you hold this belief when she directly lied about how much she knew about the Niger documents. She stated that, paraphrasing,"someone deep in the bowels of the intelligence agencies might have known something about the documents being questionable, but that information didn't rise up to her level".

Didn't her deputy just come out and take the blame for this? Since he is but one or two steps below her I don't think he really can be called the "bowels". How can you honestly say there doesn't appear to be *any* impropriety going on?
posted by Wong Fei-hung at 12:33 PM on July 28, 2003

Because it would be nearly ridiculous to hold one individual accountable, in a very literal sense, for every shred of intelligence that passes through the NSA's desk and office. And the fact remains: the Niger claim was *backed up* by the British government - and still is, as of last week. And, in the grand scheme, this assertion was one very, very small piece of intelligence, dwarfed by the mountain of tangible, provable documentation of Hussein's many other crimes against humanity and clear threat to the region.
posted by davidmsc at 5:33 PM on July 30, 2003

Um, a tangible current arsenal of weapons of mass destruction providing a clear and present danger to the American homeland is what is required. That's how the war was sold. And that's weapons--not weapons program. A few files do not equal a nuclear warhead on a missile, nor do they justify invading a country which has not attacked us.
posted by y2karl at 5:58 PM on July 30, 2003