DUMMERSTON, Vt. — What does evil look like? Evil wears a black designer suit and is trailed by a gaggle of aides and security personnel. Evil doesn't enter a room until the bomb sniffing dog has made a pass and the guys with the nice suits and earpieces know exactly who is inside waiting. Evil keeps a tight schedule, and doesn't linger in the room any longer than necessary. Evil recites the talking points and doesn't allow you to get a word in edgewise. Evil invites you to come to one of the fanciest hotels in the world on a Sunday afternoon to get lied to. If ever there was an illustration of Hannah Arendt's phrase, "the banality of evil," it was my sitting in a dimly lit room at the Ritz-Carlton in Boston on May 21 to have a brief audience with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. I never expected to be sitting next to Rice, but the State Department called on Thursday asking my newspaper if we wanted to send someone to meet with Rice. My first reaction, after disbelief, was, "it's a long way to drive to get lied to." Inviting reporters from the local press and giving them access to top figures in the Bush administration has been an often-employed strategy. The hope is that they will be so sufficiently awed that they will ask soft questions and reprint the talking points in an orderly fashion. To the credit of the three other reporters with me, there were no soft questions. We went as far as we could given the constraints of the interview format to ask her about Iraq, Iran, Darfur, Latin America and why a Catholic school was granting an honorary degree to a woman who is making policy decisions that are the polar opposite of Jesus' teachings. We had 25 minutes to interview Rice, who was in Boston to accept an honorary degree and give the commencement speech at Boston College. We did so under the watchful eyes of her aides who were photographing and recording the event. There was virtually no chance that anything unexpected would happen. Rice saw no inconsistency between one of the architects of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and accepting that degree from BC. "Sometimes the use of force is necessary in order to do justice," said Rice. "Sometimes you need to get rid of really, really, really bad regimes." Rice did not discuss the really, really, really bad regimes that are currently allied in the so-called war on terror, the really, really bad regimes that the United States has installed in the Middle East and the really, really, really bad regimes we haven't invaded because they are of strategic importance to the United States. She repeatedly spoke of Saddam Hussein's evil, but made no mention of how the U.S. helped install him as a dictator in the 1960s or how much U.S. military aid was provided to him — including technology for nuclear and chemical weapons — when we backed Iraq during its war with Iran in the 1980s. She brushed aside the shoddy intelligence used to justify the U.S. invasion and expressed confidence in the case against Iran, despite the echoes of the things that were said about Iraq before the war. In short, Rice recited the Bush administration's talking points like a robot. I expected nothing else. But even though the afternoon was an exercise in futility, it was a chance to see this woman and perhaps get a glimpse behind the steely facade. I drove back to Vermont, pounded out a story and got home Sunday night in time to catch the last half-hour of "Baghdad ER," the HBO documentary about 86th Combat Support Hospital, the first stop for wounded U.S. soldiers in Iraq. As I watched the stream of mangled young men and women pass by, and the heroic efforts of the hospital staff to save them, I thought about Condoleezza Rice and the surety in which she gave her answers regarding Iraq and the need to go to war. I would like to see her talk to the families of the dead and wounded in Iraq. Not a careful choreographed photo-op like I had, but really sitting and talking with those families. Let Rice, — hell, let Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of them — face the families and honestly and truthfully try to tell them that the war was just. She certainly wasn't going to tell me.
Randolph T. Holhut has been a journalist in New England for more than 25 years. He edited "The George Seldes Reader" (Barricade Books). He can be reached at randyholhut@yahoo.com.
Excellent article.
It is very interesting how you described your 25 minutes with Condoleezza Rice. It is exactly what I try to point out as a "psychopath with an attache case" at my site. I can see now why Cindy Sheehan wrote you to comment on your article. Before the media circus, Cindy and I exchanged a few emails. Perhaps my only contribution was refering the book "Mask Of Sanity." She wrote back saying that when she had met certain high adminstration officals, they seemed "empty."Search Google, and you will find it downloadable for free. The point is, most in the administration have been chosen for their "mask of sanity." If they truly had empathy, they would be representing the American people instead of their financial masters. They would freely meet with people like Cindy Sheehan, admit their mistakes, and try to do better next time. But there will be no next time. As sad as it is to say, as living empathetic human beings, they are already "dead." We are being ruled, "by the living dead."
Respectfully,
Edward Ulysses Cate
by
Edward Ulysses Cate (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 221 comments)
on Thursday, March 8, 2007 at 11:06:24 AM
It is very sad that we have all that and that truly remarkable and honest reporter has to go through that ordeal to sit at the site of the "Pianist from Hell". And Boston College,a Catholic School bestowes an ' honorary degree ' to the person with no honor. How sad, really.
She is a thief. She stole the honor of the black struggle and abused it for her own purposes. She stole the honor of the Rosa Parks's feat and used it to promote the shame of the war. She stole the concept of being an educated woman and used it for evil. She stole everything. If there was ever such shameful thievery that is her and due to the fact that she is at least formally educated we here are witnesses of the harm done by an educated thief.
What a dishonor, what a tragedy for all our institutions.
by
Mark Sashine (53 articles, 19 quicklinks, 249 diaries, 3572 comments)
on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 at 1:47:14 PM
I'd like to see her in a foxhole with a helmet on 'that helmet' she thinks passes as hair. 110 degree heat and live rounds ought to scare the 'talking points' right out of her, and a helmet should do wonders for coif.
by
Amanda Lang (23 articles, 13845 quicklinks, 431 diaries, 593 comments)
on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 at 3:23:16 PM
Inviting reporters from the local press and giving them access to top figures in the Bush administration has been an often-employed strategy. The hope is that they will be so sufficiently awed that they will ask soft questions and reprint the talking points in an orderly fashion.
I just showed a film in my poli sci that shows Jimmy Carter talking about his bi-weekly conferences with journalists from outside the DC area. He did not seem to feel that he had awed them or that they asked soft questions.
It is important for the press to see and speak with our officials. Whether they read prepared statements, hand out canned talking points or actually give news conferences.
The picture of Rice as a disciplined and implacable disseminator of the Administration party line is both revealing and frightening.
Revealing in showing how detached from the concerns of the public the Bush Administration has become.
Frightening in showing how unconcerned they are for the welfare and well-being of the people they purport to serve.
Robert Chapman
Lansing, New York
by
Robert Chapman (28 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 556 comments)
on Saturday, May 27, 2006 at 6:27:29 PM
4 comments
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