Condi Rice is getting grilled by the Senate Foreign Relations committee. You can watch it on C-SPAN3. I am definitely liking the Democratic majority. You can also watch newbies Bob Casey Jr. and Jim Webb get their feet wet. But they get to ask questions last.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Bill Nelson: Ms. Rice, I have supported you and the President on the war. I can no longer support you and the President on the war. I cannot support it because I have not been told the truth. I have not been told the truth over and over again by administration witnesses. Ms. Rice, does General Abizaid support more troops?
Rice: No.
Voinovich is just not buying the plan. Tells Rice that he’s gone along with the President and bought into his dream and at this point he doesn’t think it is going to happen.
Oh please Boo, keep us posted for the office dwellers. I would love to see her squirm like when Boxer socked it to her a couple of years ago.
Obama is speaking now.
Obama: it seems as if a solution to the problem is always six months away. (Give examples, but doesn’t give hat tip to Duncan).
Obama is not keen to do another Friedman.
Rice: the prior plan didn’t work because we didn’t have enough troops.
I am wondering whether Graham and McCain think that means they were lied to over the last 6 or 7 Friedmans.
One of the commentors on Scarborough Country last night made the rather salient point that the ‘surge’ will bring troop numbers up to a level that is still lower than the highest troop level we had in Iraq over the past couple of years.
Yes I heard that too, but lets not give them that point to use, please…I think the problem is with most of the Senators, is that they could support troop increases in Anbar, but not in Baghdad.
I think we can use that point though, to paint this ‘surge’ as just more of the same. That level of troops didn’t work then, why would it work now when Iraq is even more tumultuous?
Well yes you are right on that, the counter point of course or should I say more of “stay the course”.
O/T – BooMan, I know you read over at dKos often, but in case you haven’t yet read, it appears that more and more kossacks are starting to see it your way regarding impeachment after last night’s speech.
I was wrong by SanJoseLady.
Yeah, I expect that they’ll all start trickling over now. I said the President couldn’t sustain his war and that Congress would turn on him. Watching these hearings you can see that the Republicans are beyond exasperated.
Murkowski is up now. I hadn’t heard her speak until yesterday. She seems much saner than her father.
Well her sanity is new found, previously and I have watched her a lot on the floor she was not so sane and supported almost down the line everything Rep.
Gee Booman I was wondering when you were going to put up this diary…..I have been watching with intense interest since it started today and couldn’t find anywhere to make my comment.:)
It is such a pleasure to watch this hearing as opposed to others I watched in the past with Rice. This time the Reps. seem to be pretty much against the “new plan”. I think Rice has been pinned to the mat quite a few times and she still manages to wiggle out, at least in her mind.
Woops she just made a slip saying that of course our support is not “limited”, instead of “unlimited” which I think she intended to say.
Diane, anytime you want to live-blog a hearing you can put up a diary, and depending on other things I (or other FP’ers) will promote them. There will be a lot of good ones and I’m not always up that early.
Senator Menendez: I didn’t vote for the war and it one of the best decisions I ever made.
There’s a C-Span 3?
Well, if I’m still around, I’d like to listen to what Webb has to say. I’m sure it’ll be good.
He is up soon. Isaakson, then Casey, then Webb.
Oops. Cardin and Vitter come first. They’ll never finish by one o’clock.
That’s fine. I don’t have class until 2.
Until then, I think I’ll go study some accounting.
This C-Span3 hearing was carried on XM radio. I should have brought the receiver into the house to listen longer. CNN had a bit that I watched.
Rice: I think it is a mistake to speculate about the consequences of failure when you are trying to implement a plan for success.
Menendez: it works well enough for No Child Left Behind. You don’t meet benchmarks and you lose funding and get branded a failing school. Why can’t the government be held to the same standard.
ZING!
Man, Johnny Isakson is a dumbass. He’s pushing the Bush surge now.
Sink, fuckers, sink.
Casey won’t support the surge. Of course, I’m sure some folks will find some fault in his position.
I do kind of like his calm demeanor. He asked a good question too. I got more info out of Rice’s answer than from anything else in the hearing.
This is a good place for some of your own advice to posters on this blog…grow up.
Eh, why bother finding fault with that? It’s just a matter of time before he sticks his foot in his mouth. Remember when he came out saying he would have voted to confirm Alito to the Supreme Court?
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That episode was upsetting, but Rendell’s support for Alito was what really set me off.
i thought casey said already he will support the surge
Good thing they are breaking for lunch soon, as my stomach cannot take much more. This obsfuscation concerning negotiating with Iran just burns me, Webb did make a good point that we managed to make peace with China in 70’s despite the fact of the nuclear weapon development.
True, but China wasn’t a freedom hating Axis of Evil regime with trillions of dollars of our oil under their soil.
Yeah right.:) Oh so she’s headed for the house now, who’s heading that committee, is it Murtha. Darn, well I have to take a break now and play my video game, to get some relief from listening to this.
Hagel:
“We have four years full of good reasons for our skeptisism.”
“You cannot sit here today and say that we will not engage Iran across its border.
He said Bushes speech outlined the most dangerous foreign policy in our history and “I will oppose it.”
Kerry: “The President lost his last chance at bippartisan ship last night….this will fully divide congress and the country.”
Fieingold was magnificent. He had a relentless frame for his questions and would NOT let her off the hook with evasions, he just kept interrupting her with the same question..
“Is American more secure now than before we invaded Iraq?”
” Are we better off in our dealing with N Korea and Iran since we invaded Iraq?”
“Is our military better off since we invaded Iraq?”
“Is Afganistan better off since we invaded Iraq?”
There was nothing she could do to distract him with her meaningless words..including her weak protestation..”Not everything is related to Iraq”…
He summarized with this: “The Iraq Diversion has been catastrophic for Americas National Security.”
She was pretty miffed and responded with..’I’m the one who goes to work on all of this every day!..(in other words, I know it all and you know nuthin!) followed by some nonsense about us having “good policies in place for all of these issues..etc.
I took notes on all of this..will be back with more..