Those Who Forget History, Etc
Newsweek/MSNBC has yet another story on the decision to let Condi testify, but this one has a couple of pieces of information I’ve not seen before. The straw that broke the camel’s back appears to have been:
“The grainy photograph rolled off the fax machine at the White House counsel’s office last Monday morning, along with a scribbled note that smacked of blackmail. If the White House didn’t allow national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify in public before the 9/11 commission, it read, “This will be all over Washington in 24 hours.” The photo, from a Nov. 22, 1945, New York Times story, showed Adm. William D. Leahy, chief of staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, appearing before a special congressional panel investigating the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. PRESIDENT’S CHIEF OF STAFF TESTIFIES read the headline over the snapshot of Leahy’s very public testimony. The point was clear: the White House could no longer get away with the claim that Rice’s appearance would be a profound breach of precedent.”
The other is: “President Bush and Vice President Cheney, who until last week insisted they would testify only before the panel’s leaders, also agreed to appear. Now they will give unsworn testimony, together, before the full panel. Bush realized the controversy was a costly distraction that needed to end, and fast. GOP leaders on Capitol Hill and the president’s political aides, says one commissioner, “just wanted this to go away.”
Unsworn testimony. Well, it’s not like either of them have ever said anything to make us suspect their veracity, right?
