I'm sure many of you received the following today from the esteemed Senator Boxer:
On Tuesday, January 18th and Wednesday, January 19th, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice will appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a confirmation hearing for her appointment as Secretary of State.
Dr. Rice's confirmation hearing must not be a rubber stamp of President Bush's appointment. The Senate must take its "advice and consent" role seriously.
That's why, as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I intend to stand up and ask Condoleeza Rice the tough questions that Americans deserve to have answered. Questions like:
Why did the United States go to war in Iraq based on misleading -- if not false and fraudulent -- evidence?
Why did we divert valuable resources and intelligence personnel to Iraq, taking them away from Afghanistan and the pursuit of Osama bin Laden?
Why did you mislead the American people into thinking there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaida before September 11th?
We must hold Condoleeza Rice accountable for her misleading statements leading up to the Iraq war and beyond before we can even consider promoting her to Secretary of State.
So I ask you to join with me: Lend your voice to the chorus of millions of Americans across our great land who are demanding that Condoleeza Rice tell the truth about Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, the search for Osama bin Laden, the fight against Al Qaida, and the war on terrorism.
I urge you to sign my petition below, so I can take your voice with me to the committee room and the floor of the Senate in the pursuit of the truth from Condoleeza Rice.
I wrote to Senator Boxer and said that while I love the effort and signed her petition, she must be very careful when questioning Rice because if her 9/11 commission testimony is any indication, she is a master at evading the topic. For instance, take the following question:
Why did the United States go to war in Iraq based on misleading -- if not false and fraudulent -- evidence?
I can just hear Condo now: "Well, there isn't an expert alive today who thinks that Saddam didn't actually have WMD at the time. Everyone thought this was the case. Congress was privy to the same information that we were, and almost all of them felt the same way we did....blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah, and so on, for 25 minutes in an effort to filibuster the questions in order to minimize the number of questions asked of me."
So, I think the questions need to be very specific, and she needs to be interrupted when she starts yammering away on unrelated subjects. I suppose it's presumptuous of me to tell My Favorite California Senator how to ask Dr. Rice questions, especially since it's her idea to do so in the first place, but it can't hurt to put a bunch of suggestions up here, so here goes:
What would YOU ask Condoleezza Rice in your attempt to hold her accountable for getting us involved in this mess of a war?
For those who don't want to come up with a question, put yourself in Rice's shoes (and given their price I'm sure many of you will be excited at the prospect) and imagine how you would answer these questions if you were she.