WTF Is It Now?!?

Working hard today and waiting for the snow.


Condi caught in canard
The candidate for Secretary of State was caught in a lie during her hearing yesterday, and was actually called on it by a previously comatose Senator Joe Biden:

Biden dismissed as "malarkey" Ms. Rice's assertion that 120,000 Iraqi troops had been trained. He said that based on his own interviews on trips in Iraq, the actual number of fully trained Iraqis was closer to 4,000.

"I strongly urge you to pick up the phone or go see these folks," he told her before nodding off again.

Senator Paul Sarbanes seemed to show a bit more sack:

SARBANES: My next question is: I've always been curious of the rationale why a national security adviser will not appear before the Congress to testify and answer questions, but goes on the news programs or appears at the press club or, I mean, you can just go right down the list, and at the end of it, says, "Now I'm open to take your questions," and then proceeds to answer questions on the public record and in front of the public. Now why shouldn't the national security -- what is the rationale for that? Why don't they respond to the Congress?

RICE: Well, the rationale, Senator, has been a couple things. First of all, that there is a separation of powers and the president's staff is to him in the executive branch a private counsel. When you go...

SARBANES: Well, it's not very private counsel when you go on the national media shows, appear publicly and answer questions in that forum. I'd have a little more understanding of the rationale if you didn't do that.

Ms Rice gets testy at hearing.