I Can't Laugh It Off Anymore

The unabashed self-righteousness of the Bush Administration was in full display the other day, as Condi Rice responded thusly to a reporter's question:

Russia is a state that is unfortunately using the one tool that it has always used whenever it wishes to deliver a message and that's its military power. That's not the way to deal in the 21st century.

This is the so-called expert on Russia?

Greenwald had this to say:

Other than our media elite, is there anyone who doesn't recognize how absurd it is for Rice to be issuing a sermon like that? Who is the target audience for that? And what does it say about our political discourse that Rice knows she can say things like that with a straight face -- and, before her, that John McCain can do much the same -- without its being pointed out how darkly laughable it is?

I want to see someone from the media elite -- a Couric, a Williams, or a Gibson -- go Olbermann on this subject. Talk straight to the camera as though it were Rice or McCan't, and visibly spit his/her rage at how brazenly cynical and dangerous it is not to take responsibility for how aggressive a country we really are. "Oh, but our rage is Good and Just." Blecch.