[Endeavor]

You know, that's precisely the point, isn't it? There is some wisdom in picking your battles. I mean, it's one thing to find yourself at The Alamo, expecting Houston to get off his butt and send you troops and then to realize, "Hey, no troops are coming and we've got two choices - surrender or fight to the death." I mean - those guys were extremely courageous to go down fighting and because they did, Houston finally got his act together, the troops were inspired and Santa Ana was quickly disposed of shortly thereafter at San Jacinto.

Where is the inspiration in the WH refusing to let Rice testify? Technically, a case could be made that this commission is not an extension of Congress and Rice could testify w/o jeopardizing executive privilege. Politically, this just seems like a no brainer. Yet here we are. And what do we gain from it? Some questionable ruling on executive privilege. Whatever.

[Timeout]

I agree with the president's decision about Dr. Rice's testimony.

I shared emails with Jonah Goldberg on this subject today...we were discussing how the media is offering NO CONTEXT on the executive privilege issue...

Jonah,
You're right that the media has given no context to Dr. Rice's refusal to tesify.

That context might include:
1) No NSC advisor in history has testified on policy issues. (Every instance of previous NSC testimony was in the context of a criminal investigation.)

2) Unlike Cabinet heads, advisors to the president are not confirmed by Congress. The president relies on the unfettered opinions of his advisors. If they worried that every conversation was subject to Congressional review, would they feel as free to agree---or disagree----with the president in the messy early days of policy formulation?

3) We are at war. Do we want our NSC advisor disclosing policies and strategies in public? I feel certain that, if Dr. Rice testified publicly, partisan members of the commision would ask repeated questions to which Dr. Rice would be compelled to answer, "I cannot discuss that for national security reasons". It would make her look bad.

4) If the White House allowed her to testify, what's to stop Congress from citing other "important matters" and demanding that she testify on, say, Iraq policy? Or Pakistan policy. Or Israel policy. All important, and thus ripe targets for future Dem mischief. The wall of separation between the oval office and capitol hill would have been breached for all time.

I would guess most Americans interpret the refusal to testify as evidence of something to hide. And why shouldn't they---given the lack of context provided by the media?