Preposterous Universe

 
Secret speeches

We all know what a mess the Administration got itself into by refusing to let Condoleeza Rice testify in public and under oath before the 9/11 commission, eventually being forced to give in. One of the main reasons their position was so silly is that Rice was constantly giving interviews to news shows at the very time she was refusing to testify in public and under oath; the obvious implication being that it was okay to talk, so long as you weren't sworn to tell the truth, or if you were, so long as nobody would know what you said.

Now they are refusing to release the draft of the speech that Rice was scheduled to give precisely on September 11, 2001 -- a major address outlining the administrations foreign-policy strategies. We all know why they wouldn't want it made public; the painful truth that the administration was focused on state-based threats and swooning over missile defense systems, when they should have been concentrating on asymmetric threats from terrorist organizations, would be glaringly obvious. (See Josh Marshall's post from last week, based on excerpts from the speech.) But do they really not see how dumb this looks? How secret can it be? It was a speech she was going to deliver! One presumes there would have been people in the room, listening to it and stuff.

Update: Tbogg says much the same thing. Not that I thought this point was so subtle you had to be an overeducated theoretical physicist to figure it out or anything.

~ posted by Sean Carroll at 4:50 PM ~ link ~ ~ ~