Poor Condi Rice. First hung out to dry and lie in front of the 9/11 commission. Now, on Tues. (6/1) we heard her on C-SPAN in what is apparently her new job: White House social planner. Condi spent 10-15 minutes going over the list of places Bush and Laura would visit in the coming two weeks on his European "tour", right down to where and when they would dine and with whom. Now we find she has also sunk to next level down in public credibility: she is fast becoming a favorite target of humorists.

Condi Rice routinely exploits the bombing of the 16th St. Baptist Church in Alabama by the KKK. Last week at Vanderbilt U. she compared the tragedy to what's happening in Afghanistan and Iraq. "Those terrorists failed because ofâ?¦ the courage and sacrifice of all who suffered and struggled for civil rights." Of course Rice failed to mention that the biggest violator of civil rights in Iraq and Afghanistan at the moment is the Bush administration. This was not lost on Vanderbilt students and staff: Many signed a petition to protest Rice's visit, claiming she was, as a "person who repeatedly misrepresented the truth to tragic effect," unfit for such recognition. Constance Gee, a professor and wife of Chancellor Gordon Gee, was among 200 people who signed the petition. Before the speech, protestors rallied with signs reading "Vandy Does Not Support Liars."

Newsday: "The United States is bracing for possible terrorist attacks before the November presidential election, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said. "The opportunity for terrorists to try to influence the election, as was the case with the Spain bombings last month, appears to be an opportunity that would "be too good to pass up for them," Rice said.[Is she talking about Al-Qaeda - or the Bush administration!] "I think that we do have to take very seriously the thought that the terrorists might have learned, we hope, the wrong lesson from Spain." Of course, the Bush administration failed to learn any lesson at all from that tragedy - namely that the invasion of Iraq INCREASED world terrorism.

Excerpts from Letter to Condoleeza Rich from Catherine Austin Fitts, former Bush I Assistant Secretary of Housing: "Your lies of 9-11 - like your lies about the Iraqi war - have been profitable for the military-banking complex you represent... You had numerous warnings of the risks of 9-11 - sufficient to let the American people know and use their best judgment as to how to protect themselves from a possible attack. It was your job as National Security Advisor to make sure that the people in the South Tower of the World Trade Center had the knowledge they needed to evacuate their building upon seeing the North Tower hit by a plane. You knew. You kept silent. They died."

"Eager to tout improved relations with Libya for abandoning its weapons programmes, the White House omitted the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing from the list of terrorist attacks cited on Thursday by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, angering victims' families. Dan Cohen of New Jersey, whose 20-year-old daughter, Theodora, died in the bombing, said Ms Rice's omission made him feel 'sick'. 'This was the largest terrorist attack against American citizens prior to 9/11 and they're pretending it didn't happen,' said Mr Cohen. 'It's bad enough when you lose a child and then to have this whole thing swept away,' he said. Condoleezza Rice omitted Lockerbie from a chronology of major acts of terrorism against Americans over the last two decades. Stephanie Bernstein of Maryland, whose husband Michael died at the age of 36, said it was 'disgusting (and) despicable' that Ms Rice made no mention of the Lockerbie bombing while praising Libya for giving up its nuclear weapons programmes."

Guardian: "Shortly before being elected US president, George Bush wasn't able to name the president of Pakistan when asked in a televised interview. Yet, according to his national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, in the months leading up to September 11, President Bush was fully briefed and supported a detailed plan to help General Musharraf cut off support to al-Qaida in Afghanistan. As Groucho Marx once asked: 'Who do you believe - me, or the evidence of your own eyes?'" In any case, we doubt anyone believes Condi's bed-time tales about Bush! The toad is still a toad, and will never be the Prince of her fantasy.

Laura Flanders writes, "Don't expect Condoleezza Rice to apologize for messing up on 9/11. She hasn't apologized yet for getting it wrong on the collapse of the Soviet Union. When the national security adviser [took] her stand before the Independent Commission April 8, she [brought] with her into that camera-filled hearing room her treasured reputation as a foreign policy expert to two successive Bush presidents. But Rice, who claims an expertise in nothing less than the high-stakes world of global power, has failed spectacularly-not once but twice-failing to anticipate the most critical shifts of her time... Don't judge Rice too harshly. The national security adviser's expertise has never been in serving the nation-it has been in serving the house of Bush. At the first job, she has been a disaster. At the second, she is the best."

4/8: 11:20 am: Rice continues to stall and evade direct questions. Commissioner Kerry finally had to forcefully interrupt one of Rice's sideways dances with an exasperated :"Don't fillibuster me, Ms. Rice!" Meanwhile, the Republican commissioners appear to be colluding with Rice and the Bush Administration, rambling on and on instead of asking direct questions, helping Rice fillibuster, while restating the Bush line instead of acting as real investigators. One of Rice's most outrageous statements: "There is no silver bullet that could have prevented 9/11." This ridiculous statement came after Kerry confronted her with the fact that she failed to put the info about the terrorists in training at US flight schools on the Intel link when told of it weeks before 9/11. So, Condi, doing your job is a "silver bullet"?

4/8: 10:05 am Condi's testimony is using a two prong strategy:1. Use the "testimony" to present cover stories for Bush and 2. Run the Clock down to minimize tough questions. During Condi's testimony, she refers contantly to notes brought with her. How many of us, if called to the witness stand under oath, would be allowed to read from prescripted notes? Afterall, if you are telling the truth, why do you need a script? Scripts are required for people who must keep every lie straight so that they corroborate with the lies told by their co-conspirators. Condi keeps interrupting her questioners to go off on tangents, reiterate excuses over and over and avoid direct answers, thereby stalling and running the clock down - The main reason the White House insisted on a finite testimony time!

4/8: 9:45 am: Condi has been around Bush too long - the self-satisfied smirk on her face as she was sworn in and settled down to give her opening spin job before the commission was disturbingly like her boss's. Her statement was nothing more than a slickly contrived string of excuses couched in lies: Bush's obsession with finding a way to invade Iraq from day one is called "part of a broad global strategy," ignoring Al Quaida before 9/11 simply reflected a more "comprehensive strategy" for going after the terrorist group..She lied outright when she described Bush's attitude toward the Taliban in the summer of 2001 as intolerant and determined to uproot them when as late as August, 2001, Bush was describing the Taliban as a great "source of stability in Central Asia" that would aid them in building an oil pipeline.

Robert Parry writes: "One could argue there is stiff competition for the most-incredible-comment-from-the-mouth-of-Condoleezza-Rice award, but the winner may be her assertion that she can think of nothing more that the Bush administration could have done to prevent the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001... While Rice says she can't think of anything she might have done differently, former counter-terrorism coordinator Richard Clarke has offered a detailed set of actions that should have been undertaken, including 'shaking the tree' by having high-level officials from the FBI, CIA, Customs and other federal agencies go back to their bureaucracies and demand any information about the terrorist threat... In Against All Enemies, Clarke contrasts President Bill Clinton's urgency over the intelligence warnings that preceded the Millennium events with the lackadaisical approach of Bush and his national security team."

From Black Commentator: "Although the 9/11 Commission will not lay a glove on her, Condoleezza Rice is finished as a Black political asset of the White Man's (War) Party. Colin Powell, a much smarter and cagier opportunist, will likely escape this administration still clutching his devalued aura, having hoarded some small measure of political capital for himself. This is not true for Condoleezza Rice. Her complete and abject identification with her master leaves Rice with nothing of her own to claim."

On Sept. 11, 2001, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to outline a Bush administration policy that would address "the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday" -- but the focus was largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals. The speech provides telling insight into the administration's thinking on the very day that the United States suffered the most devastating attack since the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. The address was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups, according to former U.S. officials who have seen the text.

Wired: "Former anti-terrorism czar Richard Clarke's bombshell allegations about the Sept. 11 attacks have thrust national security adviser Condoleezza Rice into a high-profile media role and increased pressure on her to testify publicly at a U.S. commission probing the attacks, analysts said on Sunday." Rice was on 60 Minutes on March 28, where questions weren't just softball - they were Nerf ball! If Bush forbade Rice to testify, yet shoved her in front of the cameras, a move that can only make her look worse by the minute, what was the motive? Easy: Rice is the first body to be thrown overboard from the sinking SS Bush. They say a photo is worth 1,000 words....http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4601195/

Remember back in the days after 9/11 when Condi claimed the White House would never have dreamed anyone would use a plane as a weapon, when she had PERSONALLY received a minimum of six specific intelligence reports to that effect in the summer of 2001? Remember her lie about an armed Predator NOT being operational in summer 2001 when it in fact successfully blew up a mockup of bin Laden's hideaway? Now, to retaliate against Clarke, Condi, freshly back from a "war council" with Rupert Murdoch in Mexico, where the FOX Bush campaign was no doubt planned, is being given a free forum on CBS (Corporate Bull Sh*t) to blast Clarke for daring to expose White House Lies.

Josh Marshall points out this line from a New York Times article: "As she prepares to leave her job at the end of the year, Ms. Rice, the president's national security adviser, now finds herself at the center of a political storm, furiously defending both the White House and her own reputation." Marshall's response: "As she prepares to leave her job? Am I like totally out of the loop on what's happening in this town? Or have we not heard before that Condi Rice has decided to resign as National Security Advisor at the end of President Bush's first term? Are the authors of this piece just trying to signal the possibility that the president could lose the election and thus her tenure as National Security Advisor would end? If that's it, the phrasing certainly leaves some room for confusion. I guess it's possible that this a reference to her hopes to succeed Colin Powell since Powell, according to many press reports, has signalled he won't stay for a second Bush term."

John Nichols writes, "Rice took time out of the middle of the day to address a secretive gathering that included global media mogul Rupert Murdoch and top executives from television networks, newspapers and other media properties owned by Murdoch's News Corp. conglomerate. Rice spoke at some length via satellite to Murdoch and his cronies, who had gathered at the posh Ritz Carlton Hotel in Cancun Mexico... Rupert Murdoch is a very powerful player in the media -- and, because of his willingness to turn his properties into mouthpieces for the administration, in the politics of the United States. So it should probably not come as any surprise that, like the politicians in any number of countries where Murdoch has come to dominate the discourse, Bush Administration officials answer Rupert's call -- even when they are supposedly preoccupied with national security concerns."

In an Op Ed in the Washington Post Condi Rice asserted that the Bush administration was on top of the threat of airline hijackings and warned the FAA and airlines. This is a letter to the Washington Post asking if that is so, why did they fail to protect us on 9-11.

"The federal panel reviewing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks disclosed its witness list yesterday for its two-day hearing on counterterrorism next week. But the list omits one invited official: national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. She has repeatedly declined on the advice of the White House, citing separation of power concerns. Commission officials haven't ruled out a possible subpoena." There is only one possible reason that Rice insists on slithering out of testifying: She is hiding the explosive truth and would be forced, by testifying to either lie and open herself up to a huge perjury charge, or tell the truth and bring down the White House.

"Rice told a reporter that the Bush Admin had 'underestimated...how really awful Saddam Hussein was to his own people.' That may seem a bit surprising. But here's how it happened: '...when you look at an infrastructure that looked gleaming, if you looked at pictures of Baghdad - but when you think about it, it was pictures of presidential palaces...'... No one could believe that Rice seemed to say that she and the Bush Admin based their ideas on how pretty the palaces looked. No one could believe that Rice really said it - unless they considered the icon's past statements [like her LIES about the long-standing security warnings related to 9-11-type scenarios, or about whether she read the NIE report in which the State Dept.'s doubts about Niger uranium were expressed]. Now we're told that Rice was misled in pre-war planning by the fact that the palaces were so big and shiny. Reminder: This is the NSA of an Administration which has been praised for its great, brilliant competence."

Cheryl Seal writes: "Condy Rice's performance at a gathering of members of the National Association of Black Journalists in Dallas on August 7 was truly a dry-heave-inducing event. The first nine-tenths of her speech, delivered in an almost whining voice, was a Bush infomercial, describing just what a wonderful thing the 'war on terrorism' is, how much Bush cares about 'freedom and justice' and how great it is we are spreading that brand of freedom and justice to the rest of the world, and a whole collection of similar fantasy tales. I am sure that 99% of the questions the journalists sitting in the audience wanted to ask Condy never saw the light of day. Instead, Rice was given three or four tediously predictable questions like (paraphrase) 'Did you ever contemplate resigning over the state of the Union speech flap?' Rice was allowed to brush this entire impeachable presidential crime off as being merely an 'error in process."

When Karl Rove wants someone's head to roll, he doesn't hold a press conference. No, Rove is way more subtle than that - he keeps his hands clean by planting leaks with a favored journalist quoting unnamed "insiders" who would like that special someone to disappear. Rove's technique worked perfectly on once-powerful Trent Lott, who foolishly tried to fight back but then disappeared, and has not been seen since. Rove's fingerprints are ALL over this new "whisper" by Paul Bedard of US News: "there's growing talk by insiders that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice may take the blame [for Yellowcake-gate] and resign." To make sure Condi gets the hint, Rove even named her replacements: "former Bush administration National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, NASA chief and former Navy Secretary Sean O'Keefe, and Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq." Yes Condi, that IS a horse's head in your bed, courtesy of Don Karleone. Do yourself a favor - don't bother to fight.

PentaPost reports Condi Rice has "become enmeshed in the controversy over the administration's use of intelligence about Iraq's weapons in the run-up to war. She has been made to appear out of the loop by colleagues' claims that she did not read or recall vital pieces of intelligence. And she has made statements about U.S. intelligence on Iraq that have been contradicted by facts that later emerged. The remarks by Rice and her associates raise two uncomfortable possibilities for the national security adviser. Either she missed or overlooked numerous warnings from intelligence agencies seeking to put caveats on claims about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, or she made public claims that she knew to be false."

A BuzzFlash reader writes, "Condoleezza Rice is the nation's top national security official. After September 11th, she claimed that the White House had no prior knowledge that Al Qaeda was planning to hijack planes in a terrorist attack. That assertion was proven false. In the months before the Iraq War, Rice repeatedly reassured the public that the U.S. was seeking a peaceful resolution, and that war was not a foregone conclusion. However, it now appears that at the same time she was saying this, she was telling senior State Department officials that the decision to go to war had already been made well before diplomatic efforts to diffuse the situation even began. Most recently, it appears that she has given three separate, incongruent stories about her role in the massive intelligence breakdown that led to the White House making false statements about Iraq's nuclear capabilities." Bush should fire the liar!

WashPost reports: "Just weeks ago, Condoleezza Rice... made a trip to the Middle East that was widely seen as advancing the peace process. There [were]... hopes among Republicans that she could become governor of California and even, someday, president. But she has since become enmeshed in the controversy over the administration's use of intelligence about Iraq's weapons in the run-up to war. She has been made to appear out of the loop by colleagues' claims that she did not read or recall vital pieces of intelligence. And she has made statements about U.S. intelligence on Iraq that have been contradicted by facts that later emerged. The remarks by Rice and her associates raise two uncomfortable possibilities for the national security adviser. Either she missed or overlooked numerous warnings from intelligence agencies seeking to put caveats on claims about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, or she made public claims that she knew to be false."

Joe Conason writes that Condi Rice "was caught spreading a false story about Sept. 11, claiming that Air Force One flew Bush to Oklahoma after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon because 'intelligence' indicated that terrorists were aiming for the White House and the Presidential jet. Later she testified that the U.S. government had never anticipated an assault by airliner, when in fact there had been many warnings of exactly such tactics... More than anyone other than Bush himself, Dr. Rice stoked fears about a 'mushroom cloud' rising over an American city unless the U.S. waged war on Iraq. To promote such dread, she warned that a shipment of aluminum tubes purchased by the Iraqis could only be intended for a uranium-enrichment device. Long after the International Atomic Energy Authority debunked that claim, the national security advisor continued to insist that it must be true." We demand Congressional hearings on Condi's lies!