Rice's Checks

Secretary of State Condoleezza "I loved Spamalot" Rice told a Senate panel on Wednesday that she is going to ask for $75 million to promote democracy in Iran. Simple request, right? Not really as she was met with some pointed questions from Democrats about whether the President’s administration policies were promoting the rise of anti-American governments around the world. Rice unsurprisingly refused to respond to those inquiries... (I know, you're all shocked to hear that, aren't ya?)

Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the money for Iran, which would be in addition to $10 million already provided in the current budget, would be used to “support the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people” and to offset the political weight of Tehran's new hard-line regime.

Most of the money, according to a state department official to be about $50 million, would go toward the establishment of a round-the-clock television broadcast into Iran in Farsi, along with improvements to radio and satellite broadcasting.

Rice, along with other members of the administration, have raised the level of criticism aimed at Iran in recent weeks; pressing for U.N. sanctions over its nuclear program and blaming the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for fueling violent protests over the publication of satirical cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. (France recently lashed out at the Iranian nuclear situation as well, click HERE to read more about that)

Secretary Rice said in a prepared statement that the extra $75 million “would enable us to increase our support for democracy and improve our radio broadcasting, begin satellite television broadcasts, increase the contacts between our peoples through expanded fellowships and scholarships for Iranian students, and to bolster our public democracy efforts.”

We at TBWA agree that more attention, and most likely more money, needs to be spent monitoring the situations in Iran. But one can only hope that the administration would allocate enough time to allow the situation to resolve itself peacefully rather than go into Iran with guns blazing… like we did in Iraq.

Having said that, seeing as how Bush’s daddy was never embarrassed by Iran the way he was by Iraq… I’m sure Dubya would give the Iranian situation as much time as it would need to resolve itself peacefully...

In fact, I'm sure Bush would give an amount of time roughly equal to the amount of time it took for the Secret Service to allow Cheney to talk to local police after last weekend's accident...or the amount of time it took Cheney to address the matter publicly on Fox "News"... or the time it took for Cheney to sober up...

(I'm sorry, those were cheap shots... just like Cheney's... wow, that was another cheap shot. But you all understand, with this administration, cheap shots are like shooting lawyers in a barrell... Hmmm, even I think that last one was in poor taste)

Anyhow, stay tuned...