POLITICAL GENIUS KARL ROVE STRIKES AGAIN.

Showcasing the kind of political savvy that allowed the Bush team to come from ahead to lose in 2000, political genius Karl Rove appears to have OK'd this piece of brilliant strategy:

Starting Tuesday, the most important Sept. 11 Commission hearings yet will scrutinize counterterror efforts of two presidential administrations, but a star witness will not be there.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice refuses to testify under oath, insisting that presidential advisers need not answer to legislative bodies.

Rice's no-show will leave the floor to a former subordinate on Wednesday, ex-counterterror guru Richard Clarke, who lambastes the White House in a new told-you-so book for failing to take seriously his warnings about al-Qaida in early 2001.

In other news, entrepreneurial visionary John Gotti is still dead.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra ::: 2004:03:23:12:23