“Here we go again,” Obama told me as we entered one hearing in which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was testifying. “We will faithfully pretend to be asking questions, but we will instead give statements. She will faithfully pretend to answer our questions, but will instead answer questions we didn’t ask so as to deliver talking points we’ve all heard before. And the hearing will end, and we will walk out of here, calling it ‘democratic accountability.’
