Would You Like Some Chicken with Your Rice?

Condoleezza Rice is back at Stanford. Currently she is penning her memoirs, but she eventually will be back in the classroom, pressing her world view on brilliant young minds (brilliant enough to ask difficult questions, one hopes). Three nights ago she ventured out to hang with students at Roble, one of the four-class residences. One thinking student captured this conversation and posted it to YouTube:



I was particularly amazed by this comment, as quoted in The Stanford Daily:

“I didn’t authorize anything,” Rice told a group of Roble students in a conversation that surfaced on YouTube Monday night. “I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the [CIA] that they had policy authorization subject to the Justice Department’s clearance.”

Wow, it's like being on a merry-go-round. What I heard was, "I only authorized an authorization of torture." Whoa, hold on. I'm getting a little dizzy.

And what about this comment? “The President instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations — legal obligations — under the Convention against Torture,” Rice said. “So, by definition, if it was authorized by the President, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention against Torture.”

What I hear: "George told me it was okay if he said so." A time-honored move, sometimes quipped thus: "I was only following orders."

What I don't hear: "I am willing to stand by all my own decisions and take full responsibility for my part in the Bush administration. I was appointed to a position of great power and I am woman enough not to hide behind verbal sleights of hand."

The emperor is no longer on the throne, but his minions are still running around naked.

I'm happy to report that there was a demonstration outside Roble Hall during this Condi-fest. Stanford does not have quite the activist history of another Bay Area University (which shall here remain nameless...ahem), but dissent is alive and well.