I understand that Americans see on their screens violence

I’ve seen breakdowns of the partial Iraqi cabinet by party and religion, but I’d be curious how many of them are former exiles.

Her Condiness was on Meet the Press today, uttering a lot of talking points that conflicted with other talking points.


For example, she explained the low approval ratings for the Iraq war as a problem of the visual: “I understand that Americans see on their screens violence.” But she rejected the UN report about Guantanamo as a result of a lack of the visual: “I only wish that Rapporteur had gone to Guantanamo and actually looked at what was going on there. It’s a little difficult to understand by remote control.” Gitmo comes with a remote? Cool. Can we turn down the “evil” setting a smidge? (And of course if the commission had gone there, they would not have been allowed to speak to the prisoners, something Russert predictably failed to point out). She added, “No one would like to shut down Guantanamo more than this administration.” Oh, I think there are several hundred prisoners who’d like it shut down shut a little bit more than you.

A more disturbing use of the visual came in the Condi di tutti Condis’s other interview today, with Fox, where she insisted that she knows Maliki is a strong leader because “I’ve looked into his eyes.” You mean these eyes?


I just don’t see it.

Another example of contradictory talking points came in a single uninterrupted paragraph in which she first said, about the Iraq invasion, that “everybody knew and believed there was a WMD problem with Iraq.” Now obviously they “knew” no such thing because there was no “WMD problem,” but she then blithely went ahead and justified the hard-line stand against Iran’s nuclear program on the grounds that the same “everybody” who got it wrong last time now knows and believes that there is a WMD problem with Iran: “we are also in very good company in being concerned about what Iran is doing... we have pretty good unity on the concerns about the Iranian nuclear program.”

Asked whether the US might guarantee not to attack Iran if it gave up its nuclear program, she said no, because they are bad and Israel and terrorism and blah blah blah. Then she turned around and suggested that their very desire for a guarantee not to be bombed and/or invaded is proof that their nuclear program is not benign: “If this is a civil nuclear program, and supposed to give energy, what’s, what is with security guarantees? I thought this was supposed to be a civil nuclear program.” I’m pretty sure she thinks she just proved something with her devastating logic.