And why is Condi Rice getting a podium these days?

In a just world, she would have shamed herself into oblivion from her time as W's handmaiden.





...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It's Okay to Admit It Now

In the age of Trump, there is no need for pretense of civility.

“We didn't go to Iraq to bring democracy to Iraq,” Condoleezza Rice told a meeting at the Brookings Institution on Thursday, stressing that the aim was simply to eliminate a security challenge.

“We went to Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein, who we thought was reconstituting weapons of mass destruction, and who we knew had been a threat in the region. It was a security problem.”

Bringing democracy to Afghanistan by removing the radical Taliban wasn’t a US goal either.

“We overthrew them [Taliban] because they were harboring Al-Qaeda in a safe haven after 9/11,” Rice said.

[...]

In his recently-published book, ‘Debriefing the President: The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein’, former CIA officer John Nixon, who interrogated Hussein in 2003, argued that Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL) could not have arisen under his rule. “It is improbable that a group like ISIS would have been able to enjoy the kind of success under his [Hussein’s] repressive regime that they have had under the Shia-led Baghdad government,” Nixon said.

He noted that “Saddam felt that Islamist extremist groups in Iraq posed the biggest threat to his rule” and did his best to eradicate any such threats.

“In hindsight, the thought of having an ageing and disengaged Saddam in power seems almost comforting in comparison with the wasted effort of our brave men and women in uniform and the rise of Islamic State, not to mention the £2.5 trillion [US$3.2 trillion] spent to build a new Iraq,”Nixon wrote.

The recently-published Chilcot report, by eminent Britons on their country’s involvement in the 2003 Iraq War, supported Nixon’s assumption on IS.

  RT

Shrug.

Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Moe

Yeah, I don't know.  Depends on whether she'd like a little higher retirement profile.  If she thought they could win.....

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Not Soon Enough

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggested Thursday that she is done with politics. "I'm quite content to spend my life helping young people find themselves, I've had my fill of politics," Rice said at an event in Hong Kong, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

  The Hill

Indeed, she got quite full. Her investments in oil fattened her up nicely.

The Jeffrey Sterling Trial

This is the trial for which the government persecuted author and journalist James Risen for the past 7 years, and eventually had to let him off the hook. Check out this short New York Times article about Condoleezza Rice's testimony, wherein she describes how the White House kills a story that they don't want published. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/01/16/us/politics/condoleezza-rice-testifies-on-urging-the-times-to-suppress-leak.html

I Wouldn't Have Expected That

But to be fair, it has seemed like most things are "hard to understand" for W.

CNN host Candy Crowley sat down with the former commander-in-chief in an interview that will air on Sunday, and the network released a short clip of Bush giving his thoughts about the case.

“The verdict was hard to understand,” Bush said. “I haven’t seen all the details, but it’s sad that race continues to play such an emotional, divisive part of life.”

On the topic of race relations, Bush believes the country has “definitely improved,” adding that he had dinner recently with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who told him that an increasing number of African-Americans do not trust law enforcement — “which is a shame,” Bush said, “because law enforcement’s job is to protect everybody.”

  Mediaite

So, he’s still seeing Condi is he?

Race relations have improved if you measure by the abolition of slavery and the decline in the number of lynchings, I guess.

She's Baaaaack

Condoleezza Rice is wading back into the political waters, a sign she plans to maintain a higher profile in both world events and the battle for the soul of the GOP.

[...]

In a rare move, she recently penned an op-ed weighing in on the situation in Ukraine, and cut an ad for American Crossroads on behalf of her friend and former employee Dan Sullivan (R), who’s running for Senate in Alaska.

[...]

The former secretary of State is headlining the National Republican Congressional Committee’s annual fundraising dinner on Wednesday, a marquee slot often reserved for White House contenders.

  The Hill

So what makes you think she’s not going to contend?

And Still in Looney Tunes Land

Bill Kristol is panicking and has gone so far as to trial-balloon Condoleezza Rice for Romney’s VP, presumably because Condi did such a bang-up job aligning  her greatest achievement as National Security Adviser (being blindsided by the 9/11 attacks) with Bloody Bill’s greatest achievement (priming the pump for an  unnecessary war with Iraq) and economies were ruined and shitloads of people die or, as Bill  might put it: “good times … good times”.

And he should eat a big bag of salted dicks.
  TBogg

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.