Sen. Boxer/Condy Rice

[snoopy]

I think that is an inaccurate assessment of how it went down:

"Your loyalty to your mission you were given overwhelmed your respect for the truth, and I don't say it lightly," Boxer said.

"I have never, ever lost respect for the truth in service of anything," Rice replied coolly. "It is not my nature, it is not my character. And I would hope that we can have this conversation ... without impugning my credibility or my integrity."

I agree with Es, Condi Rice handled the situation with grace and dignity.

I don't think Dr. Rice needs Senator Boxter to impune her integrity......

I didn't watch the hearings....did anyone ask Condi how many more countries will she be advising the US to invade for no justifiable reason?

 

[tandrjohn]

I think that Sen Boxer could have been a little less confrontational but I agree with what she (Boxer) said and I'm disappointed with Rices' predictable and unapologetic response.

 

[KarenC]

I thought Ms. Rice's response was interesting. She said that she's never lost respect for the truth. She didn't say she always told the truth.

 

[dmadman43]

Senator Boxer was wonderful yesterday. She called Condi a liar to her face and Condi just gave her stupid stare. Condi is not up to being Sec. of State and will just further alienate our former allies.

I am so glad that there is a brave person like Senator Boxer in the US Senate to call people like Condi a liar when it is appropriate.

Sentator Boxer should apologize for calling her a liar, and so should you for agreeing with Boxer, as there is no proof Rice is a liar.

 

[crazyforgoofy]

Senator Boxer did a brave thing. I did watch most of the 25 minutes on CSpan and felt she had incredible backup for each point. Someone has to ask the questions and push the points to make the administration accountable for their actions. Personally I don't think Rice was questioned nearly hard enough.

 

[dmadman43]

Committee just voted in favor of Condi 16-2.Guess who the two dissenting votes were? Boxer and Kerry

Did Kerry administer the "Global Test" to Rice before he voted?

 

[bsnyder]

Here is an excerpt from a NYT editorial today that is very accurate. See http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/19/opinion/19wed1.html?oref=login Bush and Condi sold the American public a false story about WMDs in Iraq. Now that it has been estabished that there are no WMDs in Iraq, Condi has a new set of lies to sell. All Condi is going to do is further isolate the US from the rest of the world.

You've offered no proof of this, because there is none.

You're the one that's the liar.

 

[septbride2002]

Fortunately, Congress gets very little done. It'd scare me if they actually started doing something of substance.

I don't think I have ever agreed with you more! Let Congress take their sweet time - we have 4 more years of Bush and I don't want any decisions being made quickly.

~Amanda

 

[septbride2002]

Sentator Boxer should apologize for calling her a liar, and so should you for agreeing with Boxer, as there is no proof Rice is a liar.

Are you ms. rice?

 

[chadfromdallas]

I don't think I have ever agreed with you more! Let Congress take their sweet time - we have 4 more years of Bush and I don't want any decisions being made quickly.

~Amanda

I totally agree Amanda!

 

[peachgirl]

Sentator Boxer should apologize for calling her a liar, and so should you for agreeing with Boxer, as there is no proof Rice is a liar.

According to your own words, it's up to Rice to prove she isn't a liar before apologies are due...

From dmadman....

I have nothing to apologize for, again, unless you are Hans Blix. Even then, it would be up to you to prove you aren't incompetent as you are a public figure.

Or, maybe there's one set of rules for you and another for everyone else?

 

[shortbun]

Are you ms. rice?

No Damadman just didn't get what he wanted for Christmas!
Winnie and he won't be so mean! LOL!

 

[septbride2002]

No Damadman just didn't get what he wanted for Christmas!
Winnie and he won't be so mean! LOL!

Poor little Davy.

~Amanda

 

[Laura]

Sentator Boxer should apologize for calling her a liar, and so should you for agreeing with Boxer, as there is no proof Rice is a liar.

(Indeed, poor little Davy.)

Good for Boxer and Kerry, voting no!

 

[jellymanoffspring]

I could not get past how Sen. Boxer was speaking to even begin to listen to her points...
I also know that you can "back up" false"facts" by selective quoting ...

The Democrat party is in BIG trouble right now and I don't see them winning anyone over by continuing their partisan attacks!

Although I am an independant..if I had been asked to choose which party I would best allign with it would have been the Democrats ..but in the recent past I have to say it would be the Republican party..and I could hardly bring myself to say that at first.

I have seen Thomas Brown speak on Book TV and I have to agree with him..the similarities between both parties on economic issues etc. have left most folks only to choose according to their "moral "beliefs
and the Democrats have to stop looking only to the coastlines of America if they want to win back the Heart of America.....
or perhaps they need to really begin representing the working people and stop jobs from leaving the Country.... good jobs have been dissappearing under the Admistration of both politcal parties since at least Reagan presidency.....

 

[septbride2002]

I could not get past how Sen. Boxer was speaking to even begin to listen to her points...
I also know that you can "back up" false"facts" by selective quoting ...

The Democrat party is in BIG trouble right now and I don't see them winning anyone over by continuing their partisan attacks!

Although I am an independant..if I had been asked to choose which party I would best allign with it would have been the Democrats ..but in the recent past I have to say it would be the Republican party..and I could hardly bring myself to say that at first.

I have seen Thomas Brown speak on Book TV and I have to agree with him..the similarities between both parties on economic issues etc. have left most folks only to choose according to their "moral "beliefs
and the Democrats have to stop looking only to the coastlines of America if they want to win back the Heart of America.....
or perhaps they need to really begin representing the working people and stop jobs from leaving the Country.... good jobs have been dissappearing under the Admistration of both politcal parties since at least Reagan presidency.....

I live in the heart of america - I love the dems! by the way I don't think the Democratic party is the only one in trouble.

Published on Wednesday, January 12, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

The Imminent Demise of the Republican Party
by David W. Orr

Following the election of 2004, much has been made of the weaknesses of the Democratic Party, even its possible end. But it has escaped the notice of our blow-dry television pundits and political observers alike that the Republican Party, in the full blush of triumph in control of all the branches of government and large sections of the media, stands on the edge of certain extinction. The reasons grow daily more evident. Over the past three decades, the moderate, business-oriented party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower was captured by its extreme right-wing thereby becoming a party dominated by ideologues, increasingly divorced from unmovable facts. But no organization, political party, or nation can long survive by ignoring realities of ecology, social justice, law, economics, and true security. Sooner or later, it will step off the proverbial curb into onrushing traffic of events, forces, and trends that it refused to see.

The Republican Party has already stepped into the road. The question is not whether it will survive as presently constituted, but what else will be destroyed as it collapses in ruin and ignominy, sooner than later. Beneath the noisy spin of its media echo chamber, the true platform of the Republican Party, its future epitaph, is founded on denial. The rules of the Republican Party of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Tom Delay, and their brethren are these:

Deny science when its findings are not agreeable to your base. Republicans, notably, are on the wrong side of the largest issue in human history: human driven, rapid climate change. They’ve chosen instead to live in a Crichton-esque science fiction fantasy in which real science has no standing and human actions have no tragic, irreversible, and global ecological consequences. This is not just boneheaded, it is a form of criminality for which we have, as yet, no adequate words.
Deny the looming approach of peak oil extraction thereby advancing the potential of economic, political, and social chaos when global oil supply and demand diverge as soon they will.
Deny the proven potential of superior technologies, design strategies, and policies that would move the country toward energy efficiency and a secure energy base of solar and wind power as well as the reasons of self-interest and economic advantage for doing so.
Deny the true costs of air and water pollution thereby undermining the health of Americans.
Deny the human and economic effects of pandering to the wealthy, thereby undermining social cohesion and the sense of fairness?historically, often a prelude to societal breakdown and revolution.
Deny any and all mistakes, bad judgment, and corruption, relying on spin not truth and thereby building a solid reputation for mendacity and incompetence.
Deny the limitations of military power to impose order on a recalcitrant world and thereby condemn the U.S. to a future of international isolation, conflict, and endless terrorism.
Deny the great vulnerability of the American infrastructure to malice, malfeasance, and acts of God, thereby laying the groundwork for a future of recurring disasters.
Deny the necessity for civil discourse, honesty, and transparency in the conduct of public life, thereby holding the citizenry in contempt and promoting a spirit of meanness.
Deny without admitting it the democratic values of the country enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Gettysburg Address, and the Four Freedoms of Franklin Roosevelt, thereby undermining democracy at home while purportedly fighting for it in Iraq.
The Republican Party has chosen to deny social, ecological, cultural, religious, and economic realities which are unavoidably complicated, complex, diverse, ironic, and paradoxical. Instead they have chosen to make their own simplistic, ideological, and chauvinistic fantasy world that has little affinity for law, science, a free and independent press, fairness, true security, ecological sustainability, and the accountability that is requisite for genuine democracy.

That fantasy is on the cusp of becoming a real life nightmare. Having made the United States a large bulls’ eye for terrorists and malcontents, it may implode catastrophically taking much else with it. It may come undone more gradually, but no less catastrophically, as the economy sinks under the weight of war debt and foolish tax cuts. It may be overthrown if and when thoughtful conservatives disturbed by fiscal recklessness and imperial pretensions, all honest persons offended by mendacity, bombast, criminality, conniving, and diversion, and all Christians sufficiently alert to notice the discrepancy between the words and life of the “Prince of Peace” and our foreign and domestic policies finally shift alignments. It may take longer as the die of climate change and ecological deterioration is finally cast and we trigger adverse global changes of which we have been often warned. Unlikely as it seems, in a different scenario the Republican nightmare still could be averted by an effective, committed, agile, and strategic opposition smart enough to recognize the historic convergence of opportunity, patriotic duty, sheer necessity.

David Orr (David.Orr@oberlin.edu) is a Paul Sears Distinguished Professor at Oberlin College. Author of The Last Refuge (Island Press, 2004).

 

[EsmeraldaX]

I say we bring back old school politics...really OLD school....

Let's have people start wearing poufy shirts and running as Whigs and Tories again!

Since both political parties are apparently falling apart.

I'm John Quincy Adams...and I approved this message!

 

[jrydberg]

While I think a good portion of that article is bunk, I do agree that the Republican Party is also in danger. IMO, the Republicans have won elections in recent years sort of by default. That is, the Democrats have made bigger fools of themselves -- but the Republicans have certainly made fools of themselves. Taking Congressional or Presidential election victories as vindication of the party's platform would be a mistake, IMO. It merely means that party was less distasteful at the moment.

 

[kmiles]

The Good Senator Boxer is a hero indeed!

Dr. Rice lied to the U.S. public, can't keep her story straight, and continues to pander to her good friend the shrub instead of stand in representation of the American public.

Indeed! Perhaps Boxer should have climbed over her bench and smacked some intelligence into Dr. Rice.

 

[kmiles]

(Indeed, poor little Davy.)

Good for Boxer and Kerry, voting no!

I don't think dmadman was actually watching the confirmation. Perhaps he was chasing the pony?