OBFUSCATING RICE

Amazingly, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was nimbly able to dodge most of the questions lobbed her way in front of the Sept. 11 commission. Rice hedges on so many of her responses with phrases like "I don't remember" or "don't recall" that amounts to little more than flying under the perjury radar.

The New York Times writes:

She added that the administration was aware that there were issues inside the United States, "but I don't remember the Al Qaeda cells as being something that we were told we needed to do something about."

Mr. Ben-Veniste persisted, asking, "Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice" that the presidential daily briefing on Aug. 6 "warned against possible attacks in this country?"

He ended the question by asking her to give the name of the memo, to which she replied: "I believe the title was `Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.' "

Ms. Rice insisted, however, that the memo did not warn of attacks inside America. "It was historical information based on old reporting," she said. "There was no new threat information, and it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States."

Thanks to Josh K. for pointing out this story and quote, as well as for asking: "How can you say that a memo with a title like that is historical information?"

Good one.

But what happens next? My guess is that the GOP will stonewall anything from changing in order to secure Dumbya's re-election, they'll blame everyone else -- Clarke, Clinton, Gore, Hillary, Nader, Spongebob and Patrick -- and repeat their lies so often and so loudly that the complacent media will simply replay them endlessly that by the time any measure of truth emerges, it will sound like the crazy notion that Saddam Hussein didn't have anything to do with Sept. 11, 2001.