Whyever not?
I’ve seen and heard a lot of stories recently about Condi Rice’s refusal to testify publicly and under oath before the 9/11 commission.
The whole commission thing is turning out about the way I thought it would - that is, heavy on the political theatre and finger-pointing, light on substantive policy critiques and future plans. So it makes a lot of sense that Condi would want to stay away (or appear only in private). There are lots of possibilities for embarrassment and few for glory.
But the central answer put forth for why she won’t appear seems to be no answer at all - or at least an answer to a different question. The claim is that presidential advisers do not have to testify before Congress (put aside the fact that the 9/11 commission is not, strictly speaking, a congressional hearing). The president has to be able to get the straight dope from his advisers, without the threat of future subpoena hanging over the transaction. To which my answer is: sure, ok, but what does that have to do with this?
I mean, yeah, there’s an argument to be made that Dr. Rice can’t be compelled to testify. I’m no legal scholar, but I’ll grant that the argument makes sense. It just doesn’t have anything to do with the situation at hand.
The question is: why won’t Dr. Rice testify in public and under oath? The answer, if you strip away the cruft, is: you can’t make me. Ok, sure, but why should we have to make you? Why wouldn’t you jump at the chance? The argument doesn’t make sense, and her refusal to appear makes it look as if the administration has something to hide. It’s frankly quite off-putting, especially contrasted with testimony like Richard Clarke’s (when Republican critics threatened to declassify his earlier statements to try to catch him in a lie, he answered ‘yes, declassify everything, the country needs to know all of it’).
Anyway, I kept wondering why no one was bringing this up, but here’s a story that does. Interesting note: Rice asserts that she’d like nothing more than to testify, if it weren’t for that pesky long-standing principle that advisers don’t testify before Congress. Boil it down to the basics, and it reads this way: I’d love to testify, but you can’t make me, so I’m not gonna. Bizarro.
