America's Most Beloved War Criminals

(Truthout) Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is set to be named officially next month as a member of the College Football Playoff selection committee, charged with selecting the four teams that will compete in the first playoffs following the 2014 season. Rice's appointment, which, according to ESPN, brings some "star power" to the committee, was made possible by the generally favorable impression of her among the public and in the media. Rice has never been a particularly polarizing figure, unlike Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld, two other high-profile players in the Bush administration, who, even if they were equally serious and informed about college football, would never be considered for an appointment. Despite being at the center of some of the most intensely political dramas of the Bush presidency, Rice has managed to escape from the wreckage of those years virtually unscathed. Her reputation is soundly intact and she has not been scorned like many of her colleagues, even those who had far less influence over Bush administration policy, such as John Bolton. Rice is able to go on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and have a pleasant conversation with the host. She penned a lovely memoir and has a very warm smile. Many sympathetic stories have been written about her difficult upbringing and touching personal story.

Following Rice's appointment to the committee, some criticism did bubble up to the surface, but it was not centered on Rice's active participation in war crimes. A cartoonish jerk by the name of Pat Dye, who used to coach football at Auburn, attacked the choice on the grounds that Rice was a woman and, therefore, "all she knows about football is what somebody told her or what she read in a book or what she saw on television." For media outlets like ESPN, this established the proper parameters for the "debate" over Rice's appointment. Unenlightened sexists such as Dye were reflexively opposed, while all right-thinking people obviously considered the presence of a woman - and this particular woman - on the committee to be a welcome development. Andrea Adelson, in a piece for ESPN, praised the appointment as "real progress." North Carolina State Athletic Director Debbie Yow called Rice a "a skilled and analytical thinker."

It's simply extraordinary that the kind of chauvinistic idiocy exemplified by Dye, which is obviously beneath commentary, has become the most visible criticism of Rice's appointment. This is someone who was the highest-ranked security official in the United States at the time of the 9/11 attacks. She later became a vociferous defender of the Bush administration's aggressive war against Iraq. She was responsible one of the most radically dishonest statements ever made to the American people, when she warned that, unless Iraq were attacked, Saddam Hussein might very well launch a nuclear war against the United States, leaving a "mushroom cloud" in some unspecified American city. This was preposterous; Rice could not possibly have believed that this was a realistic possibility. If Dick Cheney, or one of the other less genial goons from the Bush administration, had made exactly the same comment - "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" - it would have stuck forever and cemented his reputation as a fanatical warmonger. Rice, though, somehow has preserved her essential statesmanship and above-the-fray elegance. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/19613-americas-most-beloved-war-criminals