Talking Points Memo notes that former SecState Condi Rice and former NSA Stephen Hadley are joining forces to create a" strategic consulting" firm. May I suggest that this is probably an even bigger farce than former FEMA Director Michael Brown's decision to start a consulting firm on disaster preparedness following his stellar performance during Katrina?

I really want to know what clients these two take on, so that I can relentlessly mock their stupidity for hiring the dynamic duo who brought us into the adventures of invading Iraq and Afghanistan without any idea of the resources required or any form of an exit strategy.

UPDATE: In the comments, jenne corrects me:

I think the Cheney "Keep America Safe" Institute is a bigger farce than both Brown and Condi's thingies put together.

OUCH. And touche'

There's been a Condi Rice sighting, everybody! And she brings good news with her. She says that we'll get hit with another terrorist attack if we leave Afghanistan.

In a new interview with Fortune Magazine, Rice offered extremely sharp criticism of the idea of withdrawal and painted the consequences of this course of action with an almost Cheneyesque bluntness.

"The last time we left Afghanistan, and we abandoned Pakistan," she said, "that territory became the very territory on which Al Qaeda trained and attacked us on September 11th. So our national security interests are very much tied up in not letting Afghanistan fail again and become a safe haven for terrorists.

"It's that simple," she declared, "if you want another terrorist attack in the U.S., abandon Afghanistan."

As the Washington Post reported Monday, Obama is rethinking all aspects of the U.S. strategy in the Afghanistan in light of the disputed presidential election, an increase in U.S. casualties and waning public support here in America.

In the interview, Rice did acknowledge the recent election as a setback. But she argued that our own experience with democracy proved that it takes time to get things right: "Our democracy wasn't so perfect at the beginning either," she said, citing her own family's experience in the pre-Civil Rights era.

This comes from the woman who ignored the NSA memos about Osama Bin Laden which warned her that terrorists might fly planes into buildings. This comes from the woman who lied about those nasty aluminum tubes and said: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." Let's continue to follow her down the road paved of blood.

Blue America is just beginning our campaign against the Afghanistan war with our new action titled "No Means No!" We are slowing bringing in other partners to join in before we amp it up....

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It's obvious that the marching orders have been given for Bushies to come forward and justify torture ever since we saw Dick Cheney do just that. This time it was Condi's turn, and she sounds just as wacky. Every time she opens her mouth she digs herself deeper in the muck. Here's her latest incoherent explanation over her remarks about the president's power to make waterboarding legal or not:

Rice: I said at one point that it was ahhh, given, right that if the president authorized it, it was legal. This was not a "Nixon/Frost" moment. What I ontended to say or what I meant to say about this is: The president said I won't authorize anything that is illegal. It's not that because he authorized it, it was legal...

And she has to even justify her position to a fourth-grader:

Days after telling students at Stanford University that waterboarding was legal "by definition if it was authorized by the president," former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice was pressed again on the subject yesterday by a fourth-grader at a Washington school.

... Then Misha Lerner, a student from Bethesda, asked: What did Rice think about the things President Obama's administration was saying about the methods the Bush administration had used to get information from detainees?

"Let me just say that President Bush was very clear that he wanted to do everything he could to protect the country. After September 11, we wanted to protect the country," she said. "But he was also very clear that we would do nothing, nothing, that was against the law or against our obligations internationally. So the president was only willing to authorize policies that were legal in order to protect the country."

Waterboarding is and always has been torture, so it was not legal. The above clip includes video of her talk at Stanford, which started this whole incident:

“[President Bush] was also very clear that we would do nothing – nothing – that was against the law or against our obligations internationally,” Rice said May 3rd at a Washington school.

And ended with her saying, again, that she didn't make a "Nixon/Frost" type gaffe.

Well, what should we call it then?

Andrea Mitchell said that she may have been bitten by an insect playing golf and was having a allergic reaction in her eye, so that's why her face looks swollen. But her words are just gibberish, and you can't help wondering if those words and their strangled reasoning are causing Condi's discomfort. Is their endgame to just try and move polling a few more points in their favor against torture investigations?

While the trumped-up imbroglio over President Obama's invitation to deliver the commencement address at Notre Dame continues to simmer, the attitudes and voting behavior of American Catholics belie the manufactured controversy. And as it turns out, a 2003 book of the school's commencement speeches issued by the University of Notre Dame Press shows the political diversity of its past speakers. Among the headliners is 1995 honoree and 1975 South Bend graduate, the pro-choice Condoleezza Rice.

Sadly for the likes of Bush speechwriter turned Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, far from "declaring war on Catholics," Barack Obama enjoys their support. Obama, after all, not only won among Catholic voters by a comfortable 9-point margin, he easily defeated John McCain in St. Joseph County, home to the Indiana university, as well as sweeping an October straw poll among Notre Dame students. And as a recent Gallup survey showed, Catholic attitudes towards abortion, stem cell research, homosexuality, out-of-wedlock parenthood and a host of other social issues differ little from the American electorate that put Barack Obama in the White House.

Of course, political popularity and adherence to ideological litmus tests have not been the deciding factors for the nation's elite Catholic universities in choosing commencement speakers. Despite similar protests, Notre Dame's 1992 graduation ceremonies featured the pro-choice New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. And in 1995, the school offered its commencement podium to Notre Dame alumnus and university trustee, Condi Rice.

And to be sure, the "mildly pro-choice" views of Ms. Rice would not be in keeping with the Church's teachings on abortion. As she later told the Washington Times in 2005:

Miss Rice said abortion should be "as rare a circumstance as possible," although without excessive government intervention. "We should not have the federal government in a position where it is forcing its views on one side or the other.

(Apparently, Rice's 1995 speech produced no firestorm akin to that which preceded the Iraq war cheerleader's 2006 commencement appearance and honorary degree at the Jesuit-run Boston College.)

For its part, the leadership at Notre Dame seems to believe that exposing students to the political leadership of their nation, regardless of those leaders' views, fits within the mission of the country's premier Catholic universities. Reflecting that commitment, the University of Notre Dame Press in 2003 published Go Forth and Do Good: Memorable Notre Dame Commencement Addresses by Rev. Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C., professor of history at the University of Notre Dame and rector and superior of Moreau Seminary.

With a foreword by Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., who delivered the 1987 commencement, the book includes 24 notable graduation speeches from presidents of both parties as well as a litany of figures who no doubt found themselves on opposite sides of the abortion issue:

Among other featured Commencement speakers are: Joseph Kennedy, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Andrew Young, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Condoleezza Rice, Kofi Annan, and Presidents Eisenhower, Carter and Reagan.

Regarding the invitation to President Obama for its May graduation ceremony, the school's president Reverend John I. Jenkins acknowledged, "Of course, this does not mean we support all of his positions" and called the event "a basis for further positive engagement."

As for Condoleezza Rice, she would doubtless agree. After all, her 1995 speech to Notre Dame graduates was titled, "The Role of the Education Person."

On the eve of the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war, Condoleezza Rice joined the long list of Bush White House figures taking to the airwaves to rewrite their boss' tragic legacy. "No one," she told Charlie Rose last night, "was arguing that Saddam Hussein somehow had something to do with 9/11." Of course, Rice was just one of many Bush administration officials making that claim before and after the invasion. And as it turns out, Ari Fleischer and George W. Bush himself among others are continuing to peddle that same mythical link between Iraq and September 11th.

As ThinkProgress noted, then national security adviser Rice argued in September 2002 that Saddam had "links to terrorism [that] would include al-Qaeda." But on Wednesday, the former Secretary of State traveled back in time to whitewash history:

ROSE: But you didn't believe it had anything to do with 9/11.

RICE: No. No one was arguing that Saddam Hussein somehow had something to do with 9/11.

ROSE: No one.

RICE: I was certainly not. The President was certainly not...That's right. We were not arguing that.

Of course, Rice wasn't the only one in the Bush White House contending "there were ties going on between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime," as she insisted as late as September 2006. Echoing President Bush's farewell in January, former press secretary Ari Fleischer made the Saddam - September 11 connection just seven days ago.

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Will Ferrell hit one out of the park tonight on his HBO special You're Welcome America-A Final Night With George W Bush and this was one of the more irreverent moments of the night playing into the rumors about Bush and Rice having an affair. After opining about missing his Cabinet members Ferrell's Bush talks about the one he'll miss the most. And lo and behold his favorite Condi shows up for one last dirty dance in the Oval office with W.

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From Countdown Jan. 23, 2009. Wicked Witch of the West-Gate, V.A.-Gate and Terrorist-Gate.

In an interview Thursday with the AP, Vice President Cheney neatly summarized the failed Bush presidency. Comparing the financial meltdown and implosion of the American economy with the 9/11 attacks, Cheney insisted, "I don’t think anybody saw it coming." As it turns out, from 9/11, sectarian conflict in Iraq and the election of Hamas to the Bush recession and the drowning of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, the leading lights of the Bush administration claimed they never saw it coming. Call it the "Nobody Could've Predicted Presidency."

As ThinkProgress detailed, Cheney deflected blame for the calamity on Wall Street and the deepening recession by declaring, "nobody anywhere was smart enough to figure that out" and "I don’t know that anybody did." Then, Cheney magically converted failure into a virtue and ignorance into a shield in explaining away the Bush presidency:

"No, obviously, I wouldn’t have predicted that. On the other hand I wouldn’t have predicted 9/11, the global war on terror, the need to simultaneous run military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq or the near collapse of the financial system on a global basis, not just the U.S."

At every turn, of course, voices both inside and outside the government warned a Bush administration asleep at the switch.

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January 02, 2009 C-SPAN

In January, George W. Bush famously predicted he would broker a Middle East peace by the end of his presidency. Now with Israel's launch this morning of airstrikes in Gaza -- which so far have left 155 dead -- Bush's pledge of a two-state solution is just the latest failure of his disastrous tenure in the White House.

Tensions between Israeli and Hamas forces have been escalating since the expiration last week of a six-month truce negotiated by Egypt. The retaliatory tit-for-tat has included Israeli strikes against militants in Gaza, and Hamas firing rockets and mortars into Israel. And while Israel reopened border crossings Friday for deliveries of food, supplies and humanitarian aid, the AP reported that the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "wrapped up preparations for a broad offensive."

On Thursday, the scandal-plagued outgoing Prime Minister issued a warning to Palestinians in Gaza. As Reuters recounted:

"I didn't come here to declare war," Mr. Olmert told Al Arabiya, an Arab broadcaster widely watched in Gaza. "But Hamas must be stopped - that is the way it is going to be."

He issued what amounted to a public call to Gazans to overthrow Hamas, the Islamic group that controls the territory. "I'm telling them now," he said. "It may be the last minute. There will be more blood there. Who wants it? We don't want it."

That kind of rhetoric hardly suggests any imminent breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian relations during the 25 days remaining in the Bush presidency -- especially given this morning's airstrikes. Which is exactly what President Bush promised 11 months ago.

After years of malign neglect regarding the simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict, President Bush launched his renewed peace effort at the November 2007 Annapolis conference. During a subsequent meeting on January 11, 2008 with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Bush made his pledge of a signed agreement during his presidency:

"I believe it's going to happen, that there will be a signed peace treaty by the time I leave office...I'm on a timetable. I've got 12 months."

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David Gregory launched a pillow soft environment for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to perpetuate her public relations revisionism on the Bush Legacy™. The only way Gregory could have made it any cushier on her would have been to ask for gauzy soft focus on her camera.

My irony meter (sharply honed from years of watching impotent journalism like this) redlined when Gregory asks Rice if she harbors any regrets of her days representing the Worst. Presidency. Ever. Does she 'fess up to any qualms about lowering our nation's moral authority by torturing? Does she feel a bit squeamish about her role in invading and occupying a country that posed no threat to us while giving aid to countries that could? Does she regret not picking up that extra pair of Jimmy Choos while New Orleans drowned?

Nah....Rice's regrets center around her inability to garner world support to do something about Sudan. And gosh, why is it that the rest of the world seems so reticent to assist the US? Could it be that you blew all good will by entering an unnecessary war and demonizing any country who questioned the wisdom of such action? But the best part is Rice's rationalization for why the US doesn't just go it alone:

(A)cting unilaterally in an Arab country or in a Muslim country that is that complex, that far away, really did not seem to be an option.

Ah...would that you had learned that lesson much, much earlier. Perhaps then you would not have the genocide you did cause while you wring your hands impotently over Darfur.

Does David Gregory point that out? Surely, you jest. Living in the vacuum of the Beltway Bubble where little factoids like that don't rear their ugly heads, Gregory ropes in a little Clinton blame too:

MR. GREGORY: Isn't it amazing, the last 16 years of American leadership, two presidents, two big regrets stand out: Rwanda and Darfur.

SEC'Y RICE: Yes.

MR. GREGORY: The failure to prevent and protect innocent people from genocide.

Um, David, I don't know if you bother to look past the White House talking points faxed to you prior to the show, but they've failed to prevent and protect innocent people in far more areas than Darfur. Heard about New Orleans? Iraq? Afghanistan? Hell, look at the memorial for unnecessary deaths erected near my home. Of course, part of the talking points for the Bush Legacy Upgrade is that they have protected innocent lives...so Gregory asks nary a follow-up to this load of lies:

I will say that we've also been engaged in activities that have protected innocent people. Look at Saddam Hussein's record of, really, genocide inside of Iraq, what he did to Shia populations, to Kurdish populations, actually using weapons of mass destruction. Look at what the Taliban did to populations in Afghanistan. And so, in those circumstances, where the marriage of our values and our security interests has put us forward in a more active military way, we have tried to protect innocent people.

I'm curious, Condi, did you bother to read the Levin/McCain report? Your "values" have left us less safe.

Nice of David to let you get away with your lies. Good to see that you can count on Tim Russert's successor to continue to be the go-to guy when you need to "catapult the propaganda."

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From Countdown: Gay-Gate where the Bush administration is still hanging in there with the Russians, the Chinese and the Islamic nations with not wanting to see homosexuality decriminalized, Environment-Gate with Stephen Johnson trying to make sure new power plants' emissions aren't regulated and Gonzo-Gate where apparently Alberto Gonzales lied to Congress on behalf of Condi who refused to appear before and answer questions herself on this matter. Someone tell me again why there aren't more members of the Bush administration in jail for refusing to appear before Congress. Anyone? Maybe when we actually get a functioning Department of Justice back this will change, but I'm not holding my breath.

December 17, 2008 CNN

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Blogging about the Bush administration sometimes feels like a graduate course in Orwellian concepts. Ministry of Truth member...er, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice continues the "We make our own reality" legacy overhaul of the Bush administration by insisting that their hands were tied over the "faulty intelligence" of Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities.

Perhaps unintentionally hilarious (or ironic, depending on your sense of humor), Rice assures host George Stephanopoulos that everyone agrees that there is no groupthink at the White House:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is it fair -- is that a fair criticism of the Bush White House, particularly in the run-up to the war on Iraq? And could you have done a better job in airing dissenting views on the WMD?

RICE: Oh, we talked a lot about dissenting views. The idea that, somehow, within the Bush White House, there weren't dissenting views during this period of time is simply not true. But the intelligence didn't permit, frankly, much in the way of alternatives for the weapons of mass destruction.

Is that right? You'd think that a Stanford scholar would know the definition of groupthink:

A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.

Didn't she just deny the presence of groupthink with an example of it? (h/t Mugsy in the comments)

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US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice told Fox's Chris Wallace that the Iraq War would turn out to be a "strategic achievement" for President Bush.

"I still believe that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein is going to turn out to be a great strategic achievement, not just for the Bush administration, but for the United States of America," said Rice.