Wisdom at Last

5 April 2004


White House Back Pedals on Rice's Testimony

The Bush White House is one of the most controlled political environments this side of the old Soviet Politburo. Moreover, it is one of the politically most astute, knowing how to keep its base energized against all opposition. So, it came as a huge shock when Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor, initially declined to testify before the 9/11 Commission. The reversal of that decision last week undoubtedly hurt, but the White House will benefit from it.

The original rationale behind the refusal was the premise that the National Security Advisor could not testify before Congress for reasons of executive privilege. In essence, such testimony would be an encroachment on the relationship of confidentiality that must exist between the advisor and the president. This didn't really hold water because the 9/11 Commission is an independent body, although created by congress. The nearest parallel would be the Warren Commission that handled (or botched) the JFK assassination investigation. It is hard to imagine a witness declining to testify because of executive privilege in the assassination of a president, and a war on American soil is a bit more serious than that.

The White House changed its tune last Tuesday when it became clear that Richard Clarke's testimony had done tremendous harm to the Bush re-election effort. Leaving it unrefuted would only give the Democrats material with which to undermine Mr. Bush's claim to the title of effective war-time president. The fig leaf that her testimony would set no precedent is fair enough (although Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was National Security Advisor in 1980, testified under oath to a Senate committee on September 19 of that year) -- the attack on America in September 2001 itself was without precedent. God forbid it should happen again, then perhaps, a precedent should be set.

Whether Dr. Rice can undo the damage Mr. Clarke did remains an open question. She is a very persuasive and intelligent woman (former provost at Stanford -- which meant she was in charge of assigning lecture halls to guest speakers), and her detractors question only her judgment, not her abilities. While the record appears set against her and her boss, a decent performance will result in neutralizing all but the worst of the allegations. A good performance may fix the whole problem for the White House.

The point is that this testimony issue was one on which the White House dropped the ball. Dr. Rice should have been offered immediately (with the precedent caveat) after Mr. Clarke (the Whitaker Chambers of the 21st century) had finished. It cost the president a few points in the polls, and while he will likely recover his standing, this is an administration that doesn't usually make this kind of mistake. "Keep the hawks happy" is the mantra for the GOP for the next eight months, and for a few days, the hawks fell into doubt.

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