Rice testifying before the 9/11 Commission

She's testifying now. Watch it live on cable. Here's the Center for American Progress's take:

Condoleezza Rice appears today before the Sept. 11 Commission on condition that her testimony "should not be cited as a precedent." In fact, it is an important precedent and it should be cited as such.

As a matter of principle, the president has no right to exempt the national security adviser from public questioning. After all, the secretary of state has traditionally been the president's principal adviser on foreign affairs, and yet he testifies regularly before the Congress, as well as special investigatory commissions. If confronted with a particular question that raises a matter of executive privilege, the secretary may refuse to testify and challenge his questioners to hold him in contempt. The notion that he could entirely exempt himself from public questioning is utterly alien to our Constitution.

The Bush administration only caved because the pressure on the White House was tremendous. Rice's appearance relieves the pressure without really answering the commission's requests.