A quick note on Condi ...

I watched a good bit, but not all of the testimony this morning.

My reactions were mixed; and I feel in some respects ill-equipped to judge her performance because a) I go into it with a dim view of her and b) I knew many of her statements to be falsehoods or thorough distortions of what happened.

It seemed a good idea on Rice's and the White House's part to tone down the criticisms of Richard Clarke -- but that leaves some question as to how they became so generous to someone whom a week or more ago they were all but accusing of being a criminal.

On the level of atmospherics, she struck me as surprisingly tense and anxious during her opening statement. And she tried to skate through on many points by resorting to repeated instances of semantic mumbojumbo like the fraudulent distinction between "rolling back" al Qaida and "eliminating" al Qaida, or her equal frail distinction between tactics and strategy.