When The Going Gets Tough …

… the tough just plain get weird.

Via Josh Marshall, here’s Bob ‘Champion of Women and Minorities’ Novak on Crossfire last night:

ROBERT NOVAK: Congressman, do you believe, you’re a sophisticated guy, do you believe watching these hearings that Dick Clarke has a problem with this African-American woman Condoleezza Rice?

Josh reports that Ann Coulter is also indignant over race-based mistreatment of Rice:

The chair-warmer describes Bush as a cowboy and Rumsfeld as his gunslinger — but the black chick is a dummy. Maybe even as dumb as Clarence Thomas.

Meanwhile, Republicans are now accusing Daily Kos of being a “secret site” that funnels money to Democrats, in this instance, South Dakota Congressional candidate Stephanie Herseth (I think I’ve seen Herseth ads over at that other super-secret site, atrios.blogspot.com.)

Meanwhile, Rice wants to go before the 9/11 Commission to rebut Clarke’s charges, but not under oath. Since, even under oath, she can decline to answer questions that compromise national security or tread upon executive priviledge, I can only discern one motive for not wanting to be under oath.

And speaking of “secret sites” like Atrios funneling money to Democrats, as of yesterday Atrios has raised over $100,000 for Kerry (which means that, at $1,500 I’m lagging somewhat behind on my goal of raising 1/50th as much as Atrios.) Were Atrios raising money for Bush, I believe he’d now be entitled to one environmental regulation rollback of his choice.

AB