Richard Ben-Veniste finds a smoking gun (but not the one he expected) as a result of his 9-11 Inquisition of Condoleeza Rice-- i.e., Richard "Torquemada" Ben-Veniste hoists himself self by his own petard he lit in the 9-11 Commission Hearing.

April 11, 2004: #01 Political Satire/Commentary where satire is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire ™·2004.
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Richard Ben-Veniste finds a smoking gun (but not the one he expected) as a result of his 9-11 Inquisition of Condoleeza Rice-- i.e., Richard "Torquemada" Ben-Veniste hoists himself self by his own petard he lit in the 9-11 Commission Hearing.·

On April 8, 2004, Richard Ben-Veniste asked Condoleeza Rice a two-part question. When she answered the second part first and then began answering the first part, he disingenuously, deceitfully, rudely, prosecutorially and inquisitorially attempted to characterize his two-part question as a one-part question in an effort to prevent her from answering the first part.

What was the two-part question? He asked her whether the August 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) contained warnings of bin Laden's intent to launch attacks within the United States, and without pausing he also asked her whether she could remember the PDB's "title." She straightforwardly answered the second part first by saying the title was "Bin Laden determined to strike within the U.S." The instant she began answering the first part by explaining why the PDB constituted a recitation of historical information about bin Laden's actions and previously stated intentions rather than a "warning" of any particular attack, Ben-Veniste deceitfully, rudely, prosecutorially and inquisitorially denied he had asked any question other than whether she remembered the PDB's title. However, the fact that he had asked a two-part question and was attempting to prevent her from answering the first part was obvious to anyone who had been listening to his words. His efforts to deny such and his effort to disingenuously prevent her from answering the first question by trying to falsely characterize her attempt to do so as an attempt to waste his allotted time by filibustering insulted the intelligence of anyone listening with ears not attached to heads containing little thought other than blindly partisan contempt for President Bush.

Ben-Veniste (and Jamie GoreLick) then behaved as though his eliciting from Rice the title of the PDB was the equivalent of uncovering the barrel of a smoking gun and as though Rice's insistence on answering the first part of the two-part question was an effort to disguise the barrel as something else. However, although the White House's declassification and public release of that PDB yesterday revealed an entire smoking gun, it wasn't the one Ben Veniste thought he had discovered. Instead, the fact that the content of the PDB wholly corroborated Rice's characterization of it and wholly negated Ben Veniste's deceitful characterization of it, of which he already had knowledge, revealed the smoking gun to be in Ben Veniste's hand-- i.e., his transparently partisan and willful distortion of information available to him in an effort to unjustifiably impugn the integrity of his political opponent.

Fair-minded reading of the PDB, the contents of which were known to Ben-Veniste when he cross-examined Rice under an expectation that Bush would probably refuse to declassify its contents, reveals that nothing in it could rationally be construed to support Ben-Veniste's deceitful attempt to characterize it as an unheeded "warning" of an al Qaeda attack in the U.S. even theoretically remotely similar to the 9-11 attacks. He owes Rice an apology but surely lacks the moral integrity to make one or even realize he owes her one.

I'm Dick Ben-Veniste, who spun
a web to ensnare smoking guns,
but yet my deceit
in trying this feat
snared me with my own smoking gun.

Framing a cross-examination question knowingly and deceitfully mischaracterizing the content of a document expected to not be shown to "the jury" (in this case, the public) is a favorite tactic of deceitful, unscrupulous lawyers. I've dealt with honorable lawyers and successfully prosecuted deceitful lawyers, and I know the difference. Not only did Ben-Veniste expose himself, rather than Rice, as the person holding a smoking gun, he simultaneously also used it to publicly shoot himself in the groin. I suspect his sense of honor is too dull for him to even feel the pain.

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