In case you haven’t seen it, take a look at Peter Bergen’s list of nine questions that should be asked of Condi Rice when she appears before the 9/11 Commission. It ran on the Times OpEd page on Sunday.
Think of it as a sort of aspirational playbill for tomorrow’s show.
I don’t have time to write at length on this as I’ve got an editor (justifiably) breathing down my neck over a late article draft. But when considering tomorrow’s testimony, bear in mind that few people across the ideological spectrum believe that Rice has been an effective National Security Advisor.
People on the (relative) left like Powell’s team at State; those on the right prefer Rumsfeld and the neocons at DOD. The Strangelovians go for Cheney at OVP. But across the board people fault her managerial competence.
Every administration has its interagency antagonisms, often between the National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. But this one’s in a class by itself on pure disorganization and factionalism.
Think how many problems this administration has had which deal with one hand not knowing what the other is doing, contending factions pursuing contrary policies simultaneously. That’s what the National Security Advisor is there to ride herd over.
Sometimes if no one is completely happy it means you must be doing something right. Other times, it just means everyone can see you’re not doing your job.
