How desperate do you have to be to tell a fourth grader you beat people up because you were scared, but it was OK?

Sounds like Rice--again--is dancing around the core issue: that the USA tortured people.

She can mince words all she wants, but what she and the Executive authorized was illegal, and in a country that values the Rule of Law over the Rule of Men, they should stand to account for that.

If you need to torture go right ahead. Then throw yourself on the mercy of the court. The problem is not the illegality of torture; the problem is cowardly pussies who hide behind authority's skirts. If you're man enough to be a rough, tough torturer, you should be man enough to take your medicine. Or don't you love America enough?

Sounds like Cotton Condi is doing the elementary school circuit to polish her torture talking points before her trial in the Hague. I guess she feels if it can work on 4th graders the World Court Tribunal will be impressed. What fun...

You're tough and fearless, you beat up and drown helpless captives when the real men bring them in, but oooh, when you get caught it's waaah, don't put me in the brig!!!! Ollie North took one for the team, but then he's not a fuckin sissy like you.

Torture went on a lot longer than "right after 9/11."

So, Rice and company sat on an NIE that said bin Laden was intent on striking, in their words, "the homeland," left bin Laden in a cave in southern Afghanistan, told the American people a man named Saddam was going to make mushroom clouds all over America, allowed torture under her watch to try to draw out a link between al Qaeda and Iraq, and now is telling a fourth grader, with witnesses in the room, that we do everything legal, and all is now fine and dandy even though we had the heebee geebees scared out of us.

I hope she has a good lawyer! -Kevo

Bush tried to make it legal after the fact, doesn't that violate the very primary Ipso Facto laws? Oh right, he was the Decider-king.

She can try all she wants to rationalize it, but the facts (and there are more and more of them as time goes by) are that she was part of a conspiracy to commit torture.

She should lawyer up in a big way. Even if Holder doesn't indict, there is enough evidence to substantiate an international trial.

It demonstrates how CLUELESS our NSA was about the nature of the terrorist threat in 2001.

Rice is the same "Soviet expert" who missed the collapse of the FSU as a member of the GHWBush administration.

Rice had an oil tanker named for her for being a good water boy for Exxon.

Incompetent people extend their careers by shifting blame onto others.

It Seems Like ...

anything, absolutely any atrocities are okay, as long as you're really, really scared.

There's something about this logic that just isn't right.

This part of her answer really jumped out at me:

After September 11, we wanted to protect the country ...

Because we really didn't give a s**t before September 11.

My god; Condi's losing the fourth-grade subgroup? What's next---toddlers calling for War Crimes tribunals?!?

The peril for the Republicans is that they built their media bubble and found it comfortable.
Outside of the ambit of the Washington Press Corps and the media, they're not fooling anybody. And if they don't realize that, they are in for it.
The ugly truth is that a middle-schooler could take Newt Gingrich or Karl Rove apart, with their unsupported assertions and lapses in logic. They never get the least level of opposition inside the media bubble, and never step outside it.
Condi wnts a measure of real world accolade--especially since she got disappeared by the Bush Administration and the Republican Party shortly after becoming Secretary of State. But she's going to have to make some tough decisions outside the bubble.

Conservative ideology won't allow for the "temporary insanity" defense because they reserve the right to torture again whenever they deem it necessary.

Soften Condi!

I hope Gonzo is her lawyer.

"left bin Laden in a cave in southern Afghanistan"
That was confirmed last night on 60 minutes when they interviewd a Saudi who was there. He said Osama left them there as the US closed in ...so there you have it . We could have had him but someone dropped the ball. Could it be that they "needed Osama" to further their build up of the Iraq war ? Just sayin'

After September 11, we wanted to protect the country," she said.

Too bad they didn't want to protect the country before September 11th.

they broke the law and they knew they were breaking the law (hence the tortured legal memos)

get 'em all one-way tickets to The Hague

The first -- let's call it the "temporary insanity" defense -- might be more compelling were it not for the second.

Exactly. If you did nothing illegal, then why go into the elaborate justificaton about the extraordinary circumtances and how terrified and stressed you were? Temporary insanity, after all, is a defense against a charge of wrongdoing -- it's a bit odd to see it invoked by someone claiming they were following the law all along.

"Look, there was a panic, so we pissed our pants, invaded a couple of Arab countries and started torturing brown people. Cooler heads didn't prevail, because there weren't any. We lost our heads and never got back on track. However, we don't regret what we did, and we won't promise that it won't happen again.

There. Are you satisfied, you li'l bastid? Next question, please.

Fixed.

"...a 4th grader named Misha Lerner asked Rice about “the things President Obama’s administration was saying about the methods the Bush administration had used to get information from detainees�:

“Let me just say that President Bush was very clear that he wanted to do everything he could to protect the country. After September 11, we wanted to protect the country,� she said. “But he was also very clear that we would do nothing, nothing, that was against the law or against our obligations internationally. So the president was only willing to authorize policies that were legal in order to protect the country.� "

This is a class of 4th graders?! Either it's a class for very advanced students, or things have changed a lot since I was in 4th grade. Both the question and Rice's response sound very contrived--not an exchange you'd actually hear in most grade schools.

In fact, I'd actually like to hear more Bush administration officials make this argument explicitly, telling the country, "[...] For a short while, we lost our heads, but we eventually got back on track."

Except that we cooler heads did prevail -- mostly at lower levels -- and then Cheney wanted to kick start the program back up again.

I remember reading this on some blog or other recently. Mashington Wonthly... Monthingon Washly... or something. The blogger was definitely someone named filzboy... or was it hilkdoy... hmm....

Gee. I guess that Condi thinks that anything you can get a shyster to write is legal becomes legal. It doesn't matter what anyone else think the law is.

But when was the last time conservative Republicans had any respect for the law except as a method of oppression of their enemies and the lower classes?

The torture program was the national security equivalent of a slush fund: off the books, no accounting, and hope nobody ever pieces the thing together from the outside.

Unfortunately, not everybody went along and the second set of books was found. It is a quality of all corrupt regimes: they keep notes of what they are doing and try to keep the notes secret.

"we were all scared out of our minds at the time, so we took extraordinary measures" -- you can't base a government on panic. Though apparently we did.

With the emergence of the "temporary insanity defense" for the torture policies of the Bush administration, I cannot resist posting The "Five Excuses for Governmental Failure," taken from the script of the BBC hit series "Yes, Minister." Jim is the Minister, a politican. Sir Humphrey is Permanent Secretary, a season government professional.

With regards to present day affairs, we are now up to excuse #4 (equivalent to temporary insanity). Which means #5 is not too far down the track.

The Five Standard Excuses
=========================
Jim: Five standard excuses?

Sir Humphrey: Yes. First there's the excuse we used for instance in the Anthony Blunt case.

Jim: Which was?

Sir Humphrey: That there is a perfectly satisfactory explanation for everything, but security forbids its disclosure. Second there is the excuse we used for comprehensive schools, that it only gone wrong because of heavy cuts in staff and budget which have stretched supervisory resources beyond the limits.

Jim: But that's not true is it?

Sir Humphrey: No, but it's a good excuse. Then there's the excuse we used for Concorde, it was a worthwhile experiment, now abandoned, but not before it had provided much valuable data and considerable employment.

Jim: But that is true isn't it? Oh no, of course it isn't.

Sir Humphrey: The fourth, there's the excuse we used for the Munich agreement. It occurred before certain important facts were known, and couldn't happen again.

Jim: What important facts?

Sir Humphrey: Well, that Hitler wanted to conquer Europe.

Jim: I thought everybody knew that.

Sir Humphrey: Not the Foreign Office.

Jim: Five?

Sir Humphrey: Five, there's the Charge of the Light Brigade excuse. It was an unfortunate lapse by an individual which has now been dealt with under internal disciplinary procedures.

No one could have imagined that the country would be led by such incompetent chickenshits at a time when all that was needed was courage and leadership. No one could have predicted.

Torture is legal because liberals dare not put Bush on show trial lest this diminish the office of the presidency while Obama is in office. When the president Obama does something illegal, like rigging future elections by non-feasance on enforcement of immigration law and putting illegal aliens on a path to citizenship, or continuing illegal eavesdropping, then it's legal because the president does it.

There's a scene in "The Old Man and the Lisa" episode of the Simpsons (the one with Lil' Lisa's Slurry) where Mr. Burns gives a presentation at Lisa's elementary school class. Lisa starts to question Burns about how much money he really has, and Smithers tries to shut her down, saying "how dare you!" Mr. Burns, however, tells him "oh, I'll handle this, Smithers", leans down to Lisa and with a smile of the sweetest jocularity and a kindly twinkle in his eye, simply says "Shut up, little girl."

I think Condi should adopt that answer from now on whenever she's argued into a corner by a fourth grader.

Torture was nothing more than throwing some red meat to the Republican Party's base - to keep them fired up about voting for "The party that beats the crap out of these arrogant brown muslims" - From a policy or even a pragmatic standpoint, it did more harm than good, obviously. That's why they're having such a hard time justifying it now.

But the policy got Bush re-elected in 2004. Nudge-nudge, wink-wink. "We don't torture." (but we're gonna make those sand-n___er's pay!). Unfortunately, that appealed to just enough Rednecks in America.

Same for the wiretapping.

They don't have enough analysts - and trust me - there are not computers smart enough to filter through all that traffic (yet). (maybe in 100 years). As long as joe-sixpack redneck believes it can be done, just give him the hint that it's being done, and his "liberal-hatin'" glands will be just spewing "vote republican" hormones.

And that's what American politics has been all about from 1994-2006.

If, indeed, this exchange took place, which I find hard to believe, I would fear for the family of this child, even with the Obamas in power. There are still many anti-freedom lovers in power who would like nothing better than to silence such insolence.

Torture is only torture if it is prosecuted. If this torture is not prosecuted, how can it be torture?

just curious

If Cheney, and now Rice, would have let this whole thing alone at the beginning of Obama's term... or earlier ... perhaps it would not be the topic is is now. But like the old saying, "me thinks he doth protest too much."

Not just any 4th Grader, to be fair. A Bethesda 4th Grader. We raise 'em right and smart over there.

"When the president does it, that means that it's not illegal." Richard Nixon said it, but W probably practiced it as well as any president in my lifetime. It's a shame that, just like cops don't bust other cops, presidents don't bust former presidents.

Nice of her to finally admit that they were terrified.

Since striking terror into the populace is the goal of "terrorism", I guess, in fact, the terrorists did win, huh?

How about, from now on, we only hire National Security Advisers who react to attacks with concerned resolution and focus, and who deal with threats using calm determination? I mean, if we can't also find ones who are competent enough to respond to warnings by preventing the attack in the first place?

Pathetic.

Criminal.