Have to disagree with Greenwald’s take on Obama meeting Condoleeza Rice:
Still, the fact that Obama is not only shielding from all accountability, but meeting in the Oval Office with, the person who presided over the Bush White House’s torture-approval-and-choreographing meetings and who was responsible for the single most fear-mongering claim leading to the Iraq War, speaks volumes about the accountability-free nature of Washington culture and this White House.
Actually, I think it’s a positive sign that says that something about Obama realizing just how dim his administration’s prospects for passing the new START treaty through the Senate really are (which we’ve touched on before). As the Democratic majority in the Senate stands right now, they’d need at least 8 GOP votes in an environment in which it’s hard to see where even ONE GOP vote would come from.
After November I think it’s pretty clear they’ll need even more than 8. The only way to get those votes is to paint the GOP into a rhetorical corner, and to get as many GOP All-Stars as possible on board right now to help with said painting. If that means taking a meeting with Condi to get her onboard, then so be it. Prosecuting her for whatever her involvement was (or wasn’t) with the Darkside policies of Bush/Cheney strikes me as far less pressing than greatly reducing the likelihood of total (or even partial or substantial) extermination of the human race. The fewer nukes sitting around the better, and seeing as we have approximately a zero percent chance of ever prosecuting Cheney or any of the other prime movers, much less Rice (who is certainly associated with but not clearly even for these policies), then I’d call that a fairly good trade to make. But then, that’s just me. Guess I’m not shrill after all.
Lemkin 