Scoring the Rice testimony

Now that the TV lights are down and the catharsis of another epic Washington hearing room confrontation has time to take hold, keep your eyes on the real prize of the 9/11 Commission, pundits and editorial writers say.

"Learn from the attacks and find better ways to defend the country" urges the Oregonian , in its editorial.

The commission should not lose the focus of its essential role: Helping the nation address the bigger challenge of stopping future attacks writes the Santa Cruz Sentinel in an editiorial, "Can future attacks be stopped?"

What about the next warning? What about the next attack? Will the FBI and CIA cooperate? How extensive should their reach be? What about civil liberties? Will laws like the Patriot Act prevent further attacks?

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Yes, acknowledge that Ms. Rice was the first sitting national security adviser to testify publicly under oath, noted the Washington Times and that she fielded tough and contentious questions in a highly commendable, expected, and altogether expert manner.

Yes, scratch your head and ask that since she did so well, why "the White House spent so much time and energy trying to keep her from having to appear," as The Washington Post asks.

In her testimony, Rice made clear, says The New York Times that "the country did not have the political will to organize against terrorism until blood was shed on American soil."

From the moment she was sworn in, says the Chicago Tribune,

until the session ended three hours later, Rice proved unshakable, undaunted, jousting with Democratic commission members who took her on, graciously accepting aid and comfort from Republicans on the panel.

Michael McFaul, a security expert at Stanford University, cited by The Christian Science Monitor states: " This was a brilliant performance - and I say this as a critic of the Bush administration on a lot of things."

The Monitor reports the effect of Rice's performance as cutting two ways. For many predisposed to disagree with President Bush's handling of the events surrounding 9/11, the likely conclusion from Rice's three hours of answering questions is that, he did "no better dealing with the terrorist threat than the Clinton administration had been."

To those coming from the Bush camp, Rice's "testimony served as an effective response to recent criticism - and will probably help ease some of the controversy."

But there are still potential pitfalls facing the 9/11 Commission if it is to submit a process to fix what went wrong with America's defense in the war on terrorism.

What lies ahead, and what is to be guarded against, is to see whether the partisanship that slipped into some of the 9/11 Commission's questioning of Rice grows and possibly risks compromising the final document it submits and the American people so much want on dealing with terrorism, writes USA Today columnist Walter Shapiro.

One of the most heated exchanges at the hearing centered on a classified briefing memo prepared for the president on August 6, 2001. It may yet prove to be more than a bump in the road for both the Bush administration and the commission.

The title of the memo: "Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside the United States." Rice repeatedly maintained that President Bush "understood the threat, and he understood its importance." Bush received the memo while on a month-long vacation on his ranch in Crawford Texas. Questions linger: Could he have? Why didn't he, do more?

Rice said the memo " did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting."

As the commission moves on to the next stage of its work, the Salt Lake Tribune, assigns a historical marker to a contribution made by Rice:

As history's first draft of the Sept. 11 catastrophe continues to be written, one Rice sound bite will certainly help in the shorthand for the ages. She said several times that "no silver bullet" could have prevented terrorists from hijacking planes and crashing them into the quintessential symbols of American capitalism and military might. She implied that the terrorist threat to the United States had been underestimated by US presidents for nearly 20 years.

'The terrorists were at war with us,' she said, 'but we were not at war with them.'

Also...
• Sense of security evident to viewers ( Boston Globe)
• CBS Poll: Rice Can't Sway Skeptics ( CBSnews.com)
• Call to declassify pre-9/11 briefing ( Newday.com)

• Feedback appreciated. E-mail Jim Bencivenga .