Already quoted by many in the last few hours, James Lileks cranked one off in yesterday’s Bleat regarding Dr. Rice’s confirmation hearings before the United States Senate:
I listened to some of the Dr. Rice hearings today. Listening to Sen. Boxer is like having someone pump six gallons of lukewarm tea up a catheter tube. Slowly. It’s like being beaten to death by a moth. The rest of the questions were a bit more adept, inasmuch as they postured and preened with greater skill – but I kept wondering, who’s their audience? Who are they talking to? Who is this supposed to impress? I suppose if you believe that Abu Ghraib is the defining crime of the 21st century, you’re impressed that they’re still gnawing the bone; if you still believe that the solution to Iraqnam is the addition of Russian forces (!) (as Kerry suggested) (!) then this was heartening: truth to power, man. But to someone who is not on the moveon.org mailing list, it’s more of the same. More about WMD, for example. I too deplore the Bush administration’s decision in 2002 to go back to 1998 and plant all those false stories about Iraqi WMD and Saddam’s Al Qaeda connections in the mainstream media, for example, but I’m more interested in what comes next. (And I still, stubbornly, support the decision to go in.) What I heard from Rice’s interrogators was the same thing I heard back in the 80s – often from my own mouth, in fact. The voice of Wise Calm International Reason, all-knowing in retrospect, all-trusting in the power of a summit or a thick piece of paper signed at an impressive ceremony and toasted with Moet. But here’s the thing: the tone of voice, the tendentious lectures, the sonorous outrage, and the overall oppositional posture would have been the same if 9/11 and Iraq had never happened, and they were discussing, say, don’t ask / don’t tell or relations with Haiti.
I really wish someone would run against Barbara Boxer.. and win!