On The View, Condi Rice Offers Joy Behar White House Party Tips, Warns Against WikiLeaks Weakness

December 6th, 2010 5:17 PM

On Monday's edition of The View, Condi Rice appeared as a guest co-host, and Joy Behar began by asking: "I have a question for you. I'm invited to the White House Christmas party this Friday. I'm very excited. I've never been before. [Applause] And I was wondering if you could tell me what I'm supposed to like, know." We've come quite a way from Behar sneered about Rice that "she's drunk the Kool-Aid."

Rice drew some notice for saying Team Obama needs to get the lead out on the WikiLeaks issue before America looks like a "paper tiger." Whoopi Goldberg asked about the talk that Julian Assange has a "doomsday file" to release if anyone gets their hands on him:

GOLDBERG: That to me sort of sounds like a terrorist. Cause that's what terrorists seem to do. Try to hold countries hostage in fear. Am I crazy or just being nutty?

RICE: This is a really serious matter. Whatever you label it, it's wrong and it ought to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law because if you don't prosecute it, if somebody isn't punished for what he’s doing, then people are going to keep doing it. You can't possibly protect yourself completely in the day of the Internet, and the way that the Internet works. But this is a great disservice, not just to the United States, but as Secretary Clinton said, to the whole international community. You cannot conduct business this way...

Behar said why couldn't Assange help by finding a location find Osama bin Laden (as if he wasn't rabidly anti-American). Sherri Shepherd asked about how Team Obama was doing:

SHEPHERD: But are they being decisive, the White House, about, you know. Are they going to consider him a terrorist?

RICE: They are having the Justice Department look into what laws are applicable here and that's really what the White House has to do. I hope they hurry up, because the longer this goes on, the more the United States looks like a kind of paper tiger and frankly, people aren't going to talk to us if they think that what they said is going to be on the front page of every newspaper in the world. Now, that said, reading some of this I also thought people talk too much in these cables, you know? You don't have to write down everything that you think. And so probably some restraint in what you actually write down would be helpful, too. Maybe people have learned that.

When Goldberg suggested (in mocking tones) that Newt Gingrich was suggesting this reflects how badly the Obama administration was run. Rice generously said this "could have happened to anybody. I do think -- and I hope the administration's about to really push the envelope here on what can be done to stop it."