The White House is currently refusing to give the 9/11 commission a transcript of the national security speech Condi Rice was to give on 9/11/01, you know, the one that talked about missile defense but said pretty much nothing at all about terrorism.

the White House has so far refused on the grounds that draft documents are confidential, the sources said

Josh Marshall wonders why, though I think the better question is, "WHY?!?!?!" It was intended to be a public speech, so it's not like there's any classified info in there.

It's pretty simple. The White House released that "background briefing" they made Richard Clarke give in August 2002 with the explicit idea that a Republican 9/11 commissioner would rhetorically hold up a copy of the transcript during Clarke's testimony. But now when something they view as damaging to their own credibility if given high public exposure, such as Rice's speech that never was, comes about, they have to stop it. How dare they even think about using words the White House had Condi say against her!

It's sheer partisan hackery in its most pure form.