Testify!

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice will be allowed to testify in public under oath before the commission investigating the failure to prevent the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, an administration official said Tuesday.

The official said the decision is conditioned on the Bush administration receiving assurances in writing from the commission that such a step does not set a precedent, said the official speaking on condition of anonymity. It appeared the administration already had such assurances verbally in private and is confident it will get them in writing.

(From this Associated Press report.)

This seems to give the lie to Rice's repeated insistence that her refusal to testify was based on a principled adherence to the separation of powers. The fudge factor seems to be the promise that her testimony — like the Supreme Court's ruling in Bush v. Gore — not be "precedent-setting."

In other words, the next time an independent commission is established to investigate the death of thousands in terrorist attacks on American soil due to threats which some future national security adviser seems to have regarded as less-than-urgent, that future NSA won't be expected to testify publicly and under oath just because Dr. Rice has — reluctantly, but finally — agreed to do so. Fair enough.

Since I was unable to find any legal or constitutional scholars who gave credence to Rice's original assertion that her position as NSA ruled out any possible testimony, I cannot point to any such scholars now who would agree that this no-precedent stipulation would permit an end run around the alleged principle at stake.

The way it looks from here is that Rice's testimony was viewed as a political liability, so the White House concocted a "principled" rationale for refusing to allow her to testify. Once this refusal became an even greater political liability, the White House dumped its claim to principle, using the "no precedent" bit as political cover.

I'm not a constitutional scholar, but when someone abruptly switches from "there's an unshakeable principle at stake" to "it's okay to violate that unshakeable principle just this once" I get a bit skeptical.