[R-G] Rice advises 'a little prayer'

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.calgarysun.com/news/columnists/bill_kaufmann/2009/05/15/9466766-sun.html

Calgary Sun 15 May 2009
Rice advises 'a little prayer'
By Bill Kaufmann

At first glance, the press release appeared as if plagiarized from The  
Onion, that publication of satirical record.

"Condoleezza Rice launches School of Public Policy," trumpeted the  
University of Calgary.

Should we expect Bernie Madoff christening a school of business  
ethics? Still fresh from passing on the ashes of her administration's  
foreign policy, Rice made the now traditional pilgrimage to Calgary so  
well trod by her disgraced GOP brethren.

Calgary's now firmly ensconced as the Betty Ford Clinic for  
Republicans seeking to launder their names after laying waste to  
America's.

A tiny knot of protesters made some noise, goading the police to  
arrest the keynote speaker for war crimes in an exercise that's become  
rote. Rinse, repeat.

Inside, memories of Condi's confrontation this month with Stanford  
University students uncomfortable with having a professor proud about  
authorizing torture dissolves in a fawning tribute.

Channelling Dick Nixon then, Condi said if the president's for it,  
it's legal and that she only conveyed the orders, so was presumably  
only following them.

Last week's run-in with a fourth grader over torture is likewise  
forgotten in a flurry of pre-picked fluffball questions.

Premier Ed Stelmach calls Rice "a fine role model for our youth." It  
turns out courtesy can stretch the bounds of decency.

A virtually truth-free eight years in power is a "controversial"  
inspiration for our youth, but I have faith they can see through that,  
unlike many in the room Wednesday night.

The last two nightmare presidential terms might have been mere rumour.

Condi spoke of a western sky clearing almost miraculously and she  
might have a point.

The day of the speech, her White House successors were desperately  
bidding to hold back the release of Iraq torture photos from the Bush- 
Condi era far more depraved than we've seen. There's fear they'd leave  
a legacy of hatred for America.

Forgotten is Colin Powell's former chief of staff telling Congress at  
least 27 prisoners died brutally at the hands of their U.S. captors in  
Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Monday, a U.S. soldier massacred five of his comrades in a Baghdad- 
area stress clinic -- a harbinger of what's to come in the homeland  
from a tsunami of military mental cripples.

There's Dr. Rice on stage, looking toothy and feeling pumped, hoping  
aloud history will some day judge kindly. It's a lesson for public  
policy students: When they say that, they know it's already coming up  
craps.

"Nothing of value is ever achieved without sacrifice," she says in an  
address weirdly banal and hackneyed, given her illustrious academic  
credits.

It's always someone else's sacrifice, like the small fry Abu Ghraib  
grunts left to twist for the cues sent by Washington.

I would have asked Condi if she knew then what we know now -- that  
many of the hundreds of Guantanamo waterboardings were meant to shake  
out a fantasy link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. You know,  
sadism to cook up a rationale for an occupation that's killed  
thousands more Americans and untold Iraqis.

She'd have told us it was done to protect the lives of Americans after  
9/11, with the friendlies lapping it up.

On a burning Pakistan, hapless Condi who helped light the fire  
implores her listeners to "hold our breath and say a little prayer."

That neatly sums up the breadth of her much-sought public policy  
expertise -- and her advice to those left holding the charred remains.

But for local conservatives, it's red meat they can't otherwise get in  
Canada and a proven money-raker.

Rinse, repeat.

BILL.KAUFMANN at SUNMEDIA.CA